Your car's top speed at Brainerd will be limited by aerodynamics and power, rather than by torque and weight as at slower tracks. You should be able to attain your top speed before entering Turn 1, and may be able to reach it again coming into Turn 2 and possibly into Turn 3; maintaining a high speed in this part of the course is crucial to good lap times. Just be sure not to overstress your engine, you will be spending a lot of time at max revs -- and turning hard right, so be sure your oil pickup is properly located.

Turn 3 is slow only by comparison with the two previous turns, but many drivers don't brake properly for it (after all, it's your first chance to use the brakes for over a mile, and they will be well cooled). Turn 3 is a 130-degree right-hand turn with a curb at the exit, with a following short straight leading into the left-hand Turn 4. Turns 4, 5, and 6 are a set of esses with progressively longer straight stretches following them, and curbs at the exits of all three. Turn 4 is about a 100-degree left-hand turn, slightly faster then Turn 3; Turns 5 and 6 are 90-degree right and left turns, respectively, both a little slower than Turn 4. The turns in the esses are far enough apart that you can easily get back across the track each time, and you may even recover enough speed that you need to change gears up and down between them (this more likely coming out of 5 and 6, if you change up and back down between 4 and 5 you may be geared wrong).

Look for slghtly widened track surfaces at the entrance to all these turns, these may help you -- but watch out for Turn 6, where using the widened entry will likely cause you to apex too early.

Turn 7 is a higher-speed left-hand 45-degree turn that is followed very closely by Turn 8, you must make a very late apex in Turn 7 and stay to the left edge of the track at the exit to be set up properly for Turn 8. The track surface is substantially widened at the entry to Turn 7, and again at the entry to Turn 8. Turn 8 is a 75-degree right-hand turn with a following short straight leading into the fast 60-degree right-hand Turn 9, under the vehicle access bridge. Taking too early an apex in Turn 9 can put you into the bridge abutment, and you will be going fast enough here for that to be most undesirable.