08-07-07
POLE, WIN AND A SECOND FOR CUNNINGHAM AT WATKINS GLEN
Building on the momentum that started at the Iowa oval a fortnight ago New Zealand racing driver Wade Cunningham has just enjoyed his most competitive showing in the 2007 Indy Pro Series (IPS) in the United States to date, qualifying on pole and claiming a win and a second place at the third double-header meeting of the year at New York State's Watkins Glen road course.
The result could hardly have been better for the 22-year-old former World Karting Champion, who has now advanced from seventh to fourth in the overall points standings, with just seven points separating him from third placed Bobby Wilson with six rounds of the 2007 IPS still to go.
Cunningham, who won the Indy Pro Series in his rookie year in 2005 and finished third last year after missing one of the double-header meetings due to an emergency appendectomy, has spent the first half of this year helping build his new team, Team AFS Andretti Green Racing, into an outfit capable of running at the front.
And that is exactly what the Aucklander has done at the past two meetings, leading the majority of laps at Iowa before finishing second to Lloyd then dominating qualifying and the first of the two Corning 100 races at Watkins Glen this weekend.
'We've had a couple of good showings but before today we've never really put it all together. Today we did,' said Cunningham after his lights-to-flag win in the first Corning 100 race on Saturday.
The win was Cunningham's fifth Indy Pro Series victory and his first for 2007.
Sunday's second weekend race could well have provided win number two, had Cunningham picked a different number 'out of the hat' immediately after the first race.
Rather than run a separate qualifying session for that race the organisers of the series ask the winner of the first race to pick a number 'out of a hat.' That number dictates how many grid positions are reversed for the second race....and Cunningham picked a six!
From P6 he quickly worked his way to P2 but having started on P3, eventual winner Alex Lloyd had an advantage which he held to the flag.
'It was a really tough race,' said Cunningham. 'Alex just had that second buffer which I had yesterday and he controlled the race. I think I got within half a second but during the middle part of the race my car's tyres started degrading and I couldn't hold that pace anymore and Alex started to pull away.'
Lloyd went on to win the race by 4.7194 seconds from Cunningham and class rookie David Herrington.
Cunningham now takes his race-winning form to the Nashville Superspeedway for Rnd 11 of the 2007 Indy Pro Series this Saturday (July 14)
