As team personnel scurried in and out of team haulers, there weren’t that many people around the Braun Racing haulers Friday morning at Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez. Because of mechanical problems with the team plane, Braun had only four crew members (a couple of mechanics, one car chief and one engineer) plus four hauler drivers to get the cars pushed to the garages and begin getting them ready to go through technical inspection. Neither of Braun’s crew chiefs had made it yet to the track. They were scheduled to arrive in Mexico City around 10:30 a.m. EST and likely wouldn’t arrive to the track until noon EST – about two hours prior to practice at 2 p.m. EST. When the Braun plane was grounded for mechanical difficulties Thursday, Braun was able to scramble and get some of its crew on a Roush plane. The rest had hoped to get on a flight run by Racing Logistics, a company that many teams use to fly to and from races. But Racing Logistics was not allowed to change its manifest for immigration reasons, leaving those Braun personnel – including crew chiefs Todd Lohse and Trent Owens as well as driver Jason Leffler – to scramble for a commercial flight. Lohse and Owens are scheduled to get in this morning – and the team was still awaiting word on which flight Leffler was scheduled to be on as they began unloading their hauler at 7:30 a.m. EST.(SceneDaily.com)(3-2-2007)
UPDATE: By 1 p.m. EST, both of Braun’s crew chiefs had finally made it to the track.(SceneDaily.com)(3-2-2007)
