Latest in a Series on How IMSA Drivers Got Their Start
By Godwin Kelly
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – Inquiring minds want to know: How did current IMSA drivers learn to drive, not only on a racetrack but on public highways as well? And what sort of vehicles did they wheel around in their youth?
In this IMSA.com series, we came up with three questions to obtain this vital background information. The featured driver this time is Colin Braun, co-driver of the No. 54 CORE autosport Ligier JS P320 in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship Le Mans Prototype 3 (LMP3) class. (Car photos below courtesy of Colin Braun.)
The 33-year-old Texan also holds the distinction of posting the fastest lap (222.971 mph, October 2013) on Daytona International Speedway’s 2.5-mile trioval driving Michael Shank Racing’s Daytona Prototype powered by a twin-turbo Ford V-6 engine. Braun has 20 wins in his IMSA career and a pair of WeatherTech Championship season titles earned with CORE in the Prototype Challenge class in 2014 and ’15.
Q: What was your first street car?
Braun: My very first car was a 1972 Volkswagen Beetle that the local Volkswagen dealer, who was a friend of my parents, gave to my brother (Travis) and me when I was 6 years old. That was my first car. We drove it around the ranch. So, we started driving around as little kids. We still have that car. When I was about 11, my brother and I decided to restore it. It was a good project with me, my brother and our dad. We restored it and I still have that car sitting in my garage today.
Q: What was your very first race car?
Braun: My first race car was a Formula Renault 1600, which was like a Formula Ford with wings on it. It was a little more powerful than a Formula Vee. It was really cool and a lot of fun to drive. We raced a West Coast series sanctioned by NASA. It was great. We ended up winning the championship. A lot of younger guys were able to race in it because you race that series if you were 14 years old. So, I was 14 and racing a big car, learning about aero and those kinds of things. It was kind of your entry-level formula type car. We raced on tracks on the West Coast like Sonoma, Laguna Seca, Thunderhill, Buttonwillow and Willow Springs – all those kind of West Coast/California tracks.
Q: Who taught you how to drive?
Braun: My dad (Jeff Braun, shown at right) taught me how to drive. I remember being 3 or 4 sitting on his lap driving his pickup truck to go get the mail way out in the country in Texas. When I got my learner’s permit, a lot of times I was driving a dually pickup truck (with two rear wheels on each side) with a go-kart trailer hitched to the back. I did most of my highway driver training with the dually and trailer.