American Le Mans Series fans are used to seeing CORE autosport in victory lane, but this weekend at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca the team’s win a different look to it.

While the No.06 CORE machine won the drivers championship and the opening two races of 2012, this week it was time for the No.05 to take its turn at the head of the back and provide team owner Jon Bennett and young gun Colin Braun with their first victories.

“This is a dream come true.” Bennett said.

“It’s been a long time getting here for me and I’m very honored and proud to be part of CORE autosport.  The group of guys put together by our team manager Morgan Brady have been spectacular considering the relatively short time that we’ve been together.”

Braun pulled off a stunning move to take the victory, using traffic to good effect in the run down the pit area after the corkscrew. Chasing former Indy 500 pole winner, Bruno Junqueira – Braun took to the outside as Junqueira moved inside around a GTC class Porsche. The Charlotte-based young American star swung around the outside to grab the lead.

“In the middle of the race, after my first stint in the car if you would’ve told me I would’ve won the race, I would’ve said ‘no way,’ I wasn’t sure we could do it when we were a few laps down,” Braun said

“Jon did a great job in the middle of the race and we were able to stay there and be in contention.

“Those last few laps were really exciting, racing Bruno [Junqueira] and I knew that Tom [Kimber-Smith] was coming from behind.  It was important to push really hard and I was trying to set Bruno up in traffic.”

Junqueira took the RSR Racing entry to second with Tomy Drissi and Roberto Gonzalez (brother of last year’s Championship-winning CORE driver Ricardo Gonzalez). PC championship leader Alex Popow and new co-driver Tom Kimber-Smith brought the second CORE entry home in third place.