After 15 Years Away, Colin Braun Returns to Truck Series with Top-10 Finish

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Kaulig Racing’s latest All-Star driver entry Colin Braun was sweaty and red in the face when he climbed out of his No. 25 RAM Truck on pit road on Saturday, Feb. 28, but he at least had a smile on his face.

Clapping his hands, Braun’s 26-year-old Kaulig teammate Justin Haley walked over and congratulated Braun on a well-earned top-10 finish.

The last time Braun had finished that high in a NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race, Haley was 11 years old.

“I guess I didn’t really know what to expect when I came in here,” Braun told Frontstretch. “I think the other OEMs did a great job with their guys getting them prepped to come here. So, considering what I had yesterday, I’m pretty pleased with the top 10 for sure.”

The No. 25 RAM Truck had survived what was a surprisingly timid 80 laps at the St. Petersburg street course and earned a ninth-place result. It’s the second top 10 for the RAM team since the OEM’s return to the Truck Series. Braun, a well-seasoned road racer, wasn’t too surprised with the result.

But he was surprised he didn’t have to survive a demolition derby to do it.

“It wasn’t too tame,” Braun said. “I definitely banged the sides off of it a little bit. I think with the way this track is, some of these corners have some open areas so you can get pushed and shoved and not hit a wall, and get back in line, and there was definitely a lot of pushing and shoving and that kind of a thing.

“Overall, I expected a bit more yellows for sure. I was surprised it wasn’t green, white, checkered city.”

When the day began, Braun joined the rest of the garage in believing the inaugural event would be filled with crashes and caution-flag periods. To make matters worse, both practice and qualifying were cancelled the day before because of rain.

Coupled with expecting a chaotic race, Braun also had to start mid-pack in 16th and had almost no time to practice in a Truck he hadn’t raced since 2011.

I mean, we started on whatever the metric is for the owner points, so kind of in the middle.

“I unfortunately didn’t get any laps yesterday in practice,” Braun said. “We had a little issue, and I was just happy to get through the first lap and not get run over, honestly.”

In the end, though, Braun didn’t seem to need much practice. On a track the three-time IMSA WeatherTech Sports Car racing champion had only competed at once in his career, Braun hovered around the top 15 for most of the event. Missing out on stage points, the No. 25 RAM struggled to make much ground, even falling out of the top 20 at one point early on.

But with 10 laps to go, the RAM came to life, and the 37-year-old worked his way into the eighth position – the highest he had been in the afternoon.

With only two laps to go, Braun lost one more position to Daniel Hemric, and finally settled in ninth, matching his best NASCAR finish since Michigan International Speedway in 2011.

“Once we kind of settled in, we had a bit of work to do on the truck,’ Braun said. “Luckily, those stages came at a good time for us, and my crew chief did a good job getting it better and better, and I just tried to be smart, work up through the field a bit, not do anything too crazy and bring home a decent finish we can build on.”

But if it weren’t for that darned rained-out practice, he felt it could’ve been more.

“I feel like if we would have had some practice, it would have been a big game changer for me,” Braun admitted. “I mean, just start off on the back foot and you’re just behind from the drop of the green.”

Braun said he has a stacked schedule racing in his “day job” of sports cars, so it isn’t clear whether he’ll return to the RAM program for any more starts.

Hopefully, it won’t take another 15 years to find out.