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Rookie Diary: Wade's View from the Driver's Seat |
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June 3. You’ve already read in our earlier stories about Wade’s
great race at the Futaba Freedom 100, which was held at the world’s
greatest race track, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, on May 27.
Now it’s time to hear Wade’s description of what was happening with him
during Pro qualifications and the race. 
Qualifying was the day before the race. Wade and Jaime Camara
[Sam Schmidt Motorsports] had been the only two Pro drivers to go break
190 mph on May 3, at the only other oval practice at the IMS. On
that day, although Wade was the first Pro driver to break the 190
barrier at the IMS, Camara was a bit faster by the end of the
session. Still the expectation was that Wade had a chance for the
pole or the front row.
In the first of two practice sessions in the morning, Camara and Wade
were 1-2 on fastest speed, although under 190 mph. In the second
session Jaime was fastest with a 190.155, while Wade dropped to third
fastest, having lost about 0.3 mph. The qualification result,
though, was definitely not what Wade was looking for. He dropped
1.36 mph more on his qualifying run. The result placed him fifth,
in the third row, on the starting grid. Camara was on the pole
and his teammate, Travis Gregg, next to him. Cole Carter and Jay
Drake made up the second row. In the final practice of the day,
with full fuel tanks, Wade’s car had picked up 1.4 mph and he was third
fastest in the session.
As you will see, qualifying is not just about the driver and his/her
driving ability, but also about the car and the team behind the
car.
As Wade explained at the end of day, “We started testing pretty much
where we left off in the open test on May 3. The car was
reasonably balanced…..We ran most of the session by ourselves, so we
got a realistic view of were we were on lap time and speed, and that
sort of thing. Then in the second session I just kept working
through our program and slipped down to 3rd. The times were
pretty close, so we weren’t too worried. Then came qualifying,
with new tires, and I guess we didn’t make the kind of allowances we
should have, and we were slower. It was not a case of other
people going quicker. We went slower in qualifying than we did
all day, so we dropped the ball on that one and that’s why we’re fifth.”
While qualifying is done with a very light fuel load, and one car on
the track at a time, the final practice is for running with all the
drivers under race conditions. Regarding this last session Wade
had this to say: “That was with full tanks running in the
pack. It’s really difficult to access where you are but…we
were with all the front guys running in a pack, so I guess we looked OK
and we ran pretty quick. Also in traffic we were not too
bad. So I guess for the race we’ll have a reasonable car.”
“It seems like that there is a bunch of fast cars and then there’s a
bunch of slow cars. That kind of creates havoc when three or four
fast cars come up on two slow cars, and there’s a little bit of
confusion going on. It’s pretty difficult to try and pick when to
get off the throttle and when to get back on it. There are
people 5 or 7 mph off when they are flat out, so in the race there are
fast people going fast and slow people going slow. You are going
to catch them. So in the race we’ll be lapping some people, and
we will all need to be effective, for sure.”
When race day arrived, the fans saw a faster Wade Cunningham than the
day before. They also saw a Wade Cunningham who knows how to take
advantages of opportunities. He is a driver with tactical judgment and
strategic maturity. Wade also finishes races. During the warm up
laps Cole Carter, who was in third place, just in front of Wade, spun
out. Cole was forced to start at the back of the field.
That left an open “hole” in front of Wade for the start because the
field was not reordered by the officials. This also meant that
Wade could get a run on the start without hitting the car that would
have been in front of him. On the start he passed all three of
the cars in front of him, Drake, Gregg and Camara, and drove into Turn
1 leading the race under green.
That lasted until lap 2 when Carter had another incident and contacted
the wall in Turn 4. The yellow came on until the end of 4 when
rain stopped the race. The track went green on lap five.
Wade led the first four laps of the race. Later he showed that
although he maybe wasn’t as fast as Camara alone on the track, by
drafting Jaime he could sling shot past and into the lead. He
demonstrated this by taking the lead on laps 18 and 21. Wade led
a total of 6 laps of the race. He also turned in the fastest
leading lap of any of the race leaders [Camara, Cunningham, Herb], at
189.870 mph.
Camara and Wade, in that order, were comfortably ahead of the field on
lap 34. Then a spin by Jon Herb, who had been just passed Al
Unser to take fourth, brought out the yellow that lasted essentially
the rest of the race – except for a quarter lap sprint under green on
the last lap. [There was another accident involving three cars on 37].
If you were at the race, or watching on ABC TV, you might have thought
Wade just didn’t have quite enough speed to win the race. Not
so. In IndyCar racing Sam Hornish Jr. is the master at staying in
the draft close enough behind a race leader to then, on the last lap,
use the draft to sling shot past to take the victory. You will
find it very insightful to find out what was going on in Wade’s mind
and with his car during the race.
Taking it from the start, Wade recounted, “I just did what I do
normally, looking at the timing to see what the leaders are
doing. I picked the right gear, timed it right and I just blew
into the lead. But I passed them right after the start/finish
line. I led lap number one comfortably, just coming through the
gears with the car accelerating and then the next lap the yellow came
out. So it was kind of a short lived lead. And then under
yellow it rained and we came into the pits [and stopped for about ten
minutes].”
“I led for a bit after the restart, then got passed [by Camara] and
shuttled back to 5th with no draft. I was pretty confident
though. I knew we had a good car. The car was fast in the
open and fast in traffic, before we [later] had a few problems [when he
made contact with Jon Herb and sustained some damage to his left front
wing]. I decided to start passing guys [on lap 13] one at a
time. I knew Camara was the quickest in front of me. So I
made sure I got to him soon enough before he and Gregg broke from the
pack.”
Regarding Jon Herb passing Wade and Camara for the lead on lap 15 – was
Wade concerned? “You can tell who’s quick and who’s not, even
when they get past you. Sometimes people get hot but they are not
generally quicker. Obviously he wasn’t quicker than Jaime and I
knew I was quicker… There was no point in passing Jaime and then
passing Jon, and then Jaime passing me back, because I knew Jaime was
fastest. So I stayed behind Jaime for a few laps and he passed
Jon [lap 16] and I passed Jon on the next lap. That was pretty
easy.” On lap 18 Wade tested the waters and passed Camara for the
lead. Camara repassed him on lap 19. Wade returned the favor on
lap 21, but Jaime was back in the lead on 22. Wade now knew he
could pass Jaime when he needed to, but the lead would not be for too
long. You pick your lap when it counts.
“As soon as I got into second I pulled up [on Camara] and [with our
speed] we just broke away from the field. I definitely got a good
tow from him. He was definitely the fastest car by himself, but
that’s not what it’s about. With Jon Herb in third, or who
ever it was, maybe even Al [Unser], they just couldn’t stick with
us. I was mindful not to pressure Camara too much so he could
keep running a pretty good line. Then we easily led the entire
straight. That’s when I tried just setting him up a little bit,
just feeling him out and forcing him to run a line.”
“There were a couple of times I could have easily passed him
[going] into [Turn] 1 but there was no real need to do it at the time
though. So I just let him go into [Turn] 1 and take his line on
the inside and I just slipped back in the line because there was plenty
of time to get into the lead. I knew if I got into the lead he’d
be able to pass me easily so I was trying to feel him out. Just
find his weaknesses and keep working on it.”
“I was definitely letting [Jaime] lead. There was no point
getting into the lead and showing him my hand before [the end]. I
never passed him going into [Turn] 3, where I passed everyone
else. So he wouldn’t have expected that. I was just working
to keep him low into [Turn] 2 for later on in the race. I kept
pulling out on him on every lap and letting him get a run on [Turn] 1
and 2, and I’d just catch it up down the back straight and be up right
behind him on 3 and 4, and then pull up beside him again [on the main
straight]. I was just trying to work out the timing through [Turns] 1
and 2 to then get a run on him going down into 3 and 4.” The plan
was to, “then set something up for the last couple of laps.
Unfortunately we just never got the chance because of yellow flags at
the end.”
All in all, though, Wade said, “To have the problem in qualifying and
then come back, that was quite nice, but I’d like to win every
race.” With Wade that means he was not happy to finish second
even though he is glad to now be first in the Pro Series championship
points. Wade’s focus is on winning the Mendards Infiniti Pro Series
Championship and winning races. Wade also leads the Pro Series
with three podium finishes, all in the last three of the four races so
far. There are ten races left. Right now, however, Wade is
thinking about the Texas Motor Speedway and its very high 24 degree
banking where the cars run two and three abreast all the way
around. This is a race Wade wants to win. The race is Saturday,
June 11.
[Fopr more about Wade go to his official web site: www.cunninghammotorsport.com .]
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