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3rd place in the Chicago truck race for Colin
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JOLIET, Ill. – The NASCAR Camping World Truck Series held its first event at Chicagoland Speedway Friday night. With limited practice on Thursday due to rain, Colin Braun’s experience from running an ARCA race in 2007 paid off. Braun ran in the top five much of the race en route to a third-place finish.

Braun qualified his No. 6 Con-way Freight True LTL Ford F-150 10th for the 150-lap race. Early on the truck was a little tight, but he still worked his way up to sixth by lap 15. A caution on lap 21 brought Braun to pit road for four tires, fuel, wedge and air pressure adjustments. He was 16th when the race resumed on lap 25 since some trucks only pitted once for fuel and did not take tires.

As the race progressed with a long green-flag run the call to take tires early made a huge difference in the outcome of the race for many drivers. While running third, Braun was able to pit once under green on lap 81 for fuel only since he took tires during the earlier stop. Point leader Ron Hornaday pitted twice under green for fuel and tires and lost a lap when the caution came out on lap 97.

Braun made his final stop of the night for tires and fuel on laps 97 and 98. Although he gained a spot on pit road beating Kyle Busch to the exit, he restarted fifth since some trucks only pitted once for tires because they had pitted for fuel after Braun and could go the distance.

With 20 laps to go Braun moved into third place behind Todd Bodine and Busch. Within a few laps Busch overtook Bodine for the lead, and Braun was running faster lap times than Bodine. With five laps to go Braun was still gaining on Bodine, but did not have enough time to get by him for second place. Busch won the race, followed by Bodine and Braun.

“It was a really great race for the Con-way Freight team,” Braun said. “The guys did a really good job on pit road and Mike Beam made some great calls on pit strategy, especially during the green-flag pit stop. I probably got outrun by experience there at the end by Kyle and Todd. I feel like I had a truck capable of winning and maybe a driver with a little more experience could have caught them, but we still got a great finish and another good night in the points. I learned a lot racing with the veterans tonight.”

The No. 6 Con-way Freight True LTL team remains seventh in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series point standings, but is only 58 points out of fifth place and 73 points out of fourth. The next race will be at another new venue for the truck series on Saturday, September 5 at Iowa Speedway. It will be live on SPEED at 9:30 p.m. (ET).