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Running 5th at Kentucky late in race and gets hit
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SPARTA, Ky. – It looked as if Colin Braun was going to continue his streak of top-10 finishes Saturday night at Kentucky Speedway, but it was not meant to be. Braun got hit while running fifth with just 16 laps to go in the Built Ford Tough 225 which resulted in a 20th-place finish.

Braun started the race in seventh place but fell back early as his Con-way Freight True LTL Ford F-150 was very loose. He was careful with the truck until he was able to pit for adjustments, but fell back as far as 15th. The first caution of the race came on lap 35 and everyone came to pit road. Braun took four tires and fuel, and also received air pressure and track bar adjustments to help the handling. He returned to the race in 11th place.

The truck was better after the adjustments and he moved up to eighth place by lap 50. It was still a bit free in and tight off, but he was able to maintain eighth place during the long green-flag run. Braun was forced to make a green-flag pit stop for fuel and a track bar adjustment on lap 98, and luckily the field had all cycled through green-flag stops when the next caution came on lap 113. The team used this chance for one final pit stop and a quick four-tire stop helped Braun gain six positions on pit road. He was seventh when the race resumed on lap 118.

Several cautions slowed the final 30 laps of the race, but that seemed to work in Braun’s favor as he gained positions on the restarts on the outside lane. He was up to sixth place with 20 to go, and moved into fifth for the restart on lap 133. One lap after that restart, Braun was running three-wide on the inside. While an accident behind him was occurring, Tayler Malsam apparently got loose in the middle of the three-wide pack and clipped the nose of Braun’s truck which sent him into the wall. He drove the truck to pit road, but the damage was too severe to finish the race. Braun came away with a 20th-place finish rather than the top-five finish he anticipated.

“It’s just disappointing,” Braun said. “We had a really good truck during the race, I thought, and the guys did a great job on pit road and made up a lot of spots there – and it’s just disappointing to have it end like that. I thought I certainly had a top-10, if not a top-five truck there at the end. Like I said, it’s just disappointing to be racing like that and have somebody do that. I’m not sure what happened, but Malsam came down on me when I was on the inside and there wasn’t anything I could do.”

The No. 6 Con-way Freight team lost two positions and is now 12th in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series point standings. The next race will be on Friday, July 24 at O’Reilly Raceway Park in Indianapolis. It will be live on SPEED at 8:00 p.m. (ET).