Once he’s finished with 10 hours of racing Saturday night in Georgia, CORE autosport’s Colin Braun can look forward to a return to prototypes where, frankly, he’s always belonged.

The Texan, now 29, made a name for himself as a teenager winning in Grand-Am’s Rolex Series Daytona Prototype category back in 2006, went on to drive a variety of GT and stock car machinery, and even set a new closed-course lap record with Ford and Michael Shank Racing in a DP at the same time he was settling into his role at CORE in the LMPC class.

Two PC titles followed with team owner/co-driver Jon Bennett before the program made a left turn into the GT Daytona class this year, and with the newly-announced decision to tackle IMSA’s top Prototype class with an ORECA 07 chassis in 2018, he’s headed back to where his sports car journey began.

“I’m obviously excited about CORE’s announcement for next year,” Braun told RACER. “For me, going and driving with Jon in the Prototype class is the best scenario I can think of. I bet people remember the last few years of my sports car career, but maybe not back when I was 17 and 18, racing for Tracy Krohn in the DP days, when I was racing in the top class and winning races and helping them to win the the championship, and so it’s going to be fun to get back to doing that again.

“I love driving those kind of cars and certainly it’s always this time of year is always interesting looking around and seeing what all opportunities are out there for everybody and seeing moves being made.”

Although he was rumored to be under consideration for more than one Daytona Prototype international factory drives next season, Braun inked a one-year deal to remain with CORE and take on the DPis and other WEC-spec LMP2 programs with Bennett. If he performs as expected, a future spent in DPis could be inevitable.

“Obviously, Jon and I have had a great relationship and I’ve really enjoyed being a part of CORE and seeing this team build and get stronger and stronger,” he said. “For me, I’ve been on one-year deals every year that I’ve driven with them and I’ve never been given a reason to go elsewhere. These guys have such a great organization that it’s hard for me to want to go anywhere else.

“I feel at home here. As a race car driver I look at my opportunities, and I look where I have the best chance to go and win races and that’s how I make my decisions on where I’m going and what I’m doing.”

Pitted against DPis and Pro-Pro P2 lineups, Braun and Bennett will be challenged as a Pro-Am combo in Prototype. Look for their ultra-successful working relationship to be on display in the coming months as Braun coaches Bennett in the fine art of piloting a wicked-fast P2 machine.

“I think it’s a bit like when you transition from the PC car to the GTD car,” he said. “Certainly, my role helping Jon try to figure out how to drive these new cars is a lot of fun. I definitely try to help as much as I can and I do a lot of driver coaching outside of this as well. The coaching aspect and seeing someone improve and seeing someone that grasps what we’re doing and really tries to make improvements is key. I definitely look forward to getting him up to speed and I think he’ll be in good shape.

“It’s faster, definitely different now that you’re in a closed-cockpit car instead of the open-top PC car, but I think Jon really impressed a ot of people in PC, which will make it a little easier jump going to the P2 car. Nothing’s easy at this level, which we know, but this CORE team is the best there is and we’re confident in what can be achieved.”