26-05-06
Cunningham on top of the world after Indy race win
New Zealand racing driver Wade Cunningham is on top of the world after winning the Freedom 100 Indy Pro Series race at the Indianapolis 500 race meeting at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway this morning (NZ time).
Pole sitter Cunningham led the 40 lap/100 Mile race from start to finish, greeting the chequered flag 0.6889 of a second in front of fellow front row starter Jay Howard and setting a new race average speed record of 295.48 km/h - almost 20 km/h (18.51) faster than the existing Indy Pro Series record.
Cunningham, 21, has won some big races before - claiming the World Karting Championship with one in 2003, and the Menards Infiniti Pro Series with another at the California Speedway late last year.
But this morning's win rates right up there and more. He didn't have it all his own way either.
After the race Cunningham revealed that for the last 15 laps he was struggling with a gearbox problem.
'For the first 25 laps the car was fine. I was able to break the draft and build up a lead of maybe a quarter of the length of the front straightaway. Then with about 15 laps to go I started having trouble changing between fifth and sixth,.' he said.
'Towards the end I couldn't even use fifth so I had to use sixth instead which is not ideal and (Jay) Howard caught up. I kept pushing though and while he did get past me a couple of times he never led a lap. It got very close - particularly on the last lap when I nearly missed the entry to Turn 1 and he got under me, but I got back into the draft down the back straight and drove round the outside of him on Turn 3 and carried the momentum to the flag.'
With the crowd in the grandstand going wild as he crossed the start/finish line to accept the chequered flag Cunningham says that he felt a mixture of elation and relief.
Elation at winning the biggest Indy Pro Series race of the year, relief that the car held together long enough to get him to the line!
Afterwards he was surrounded by well-wishers, a surprising number, he said, from New Zealand!
'It's a zoo here,' he laughed. 'There are people everywhere and everyone wants to come up and say 'good on ya.''
There is no better place to impress Indy Racing League racing bosses - or fans for that matter - than at Indianapolis, Cunningham's win witnessed by 100,000 spectators at the track and millions more via live TV around the world.
The win also means that Cunningham's plans to win a second Indy Pro Series title before moving up to the Indy Racing League are back on track.
At the first round of this year's championship he was given a time penalty for allegedly jumping the start, and he was forced to miss the double-header second and third rounds when he had to have an emergency appendectomy two days before.
