|
Rookie Diary: Racing Marco on an Oval |
|
|
|
August 16. Last Saturday was Wade’s opportunity to duke it out
with Marco Andretti again as they did through the winding streets of
St. Petersburg. But this time it was on the 1.5 mile Kentucky
Speedway oval. Instead of both starting up at the front they both
started in the back. Nothing like a little handicap. It’s
one thing when you just have to stay up in the front, but another when
you have to get past all those other guys to get to the front.
That takes some real racing.  Future stars, Wade and Marco
This time they were not going for the win, but for 2nd place, as Travis
Gregg was on the pole had the win locked up from the start.
Still, good racing is good racing between two rising stars. Marco
had qualified in 5th, while Wade was back in 8th.
After the race start, Wade dropped down to 9th position by lap 2, while
Marco was up to 2nd place by lap 3. But, after some tight racing at the
front of the pack, by lap 12, Marco was in 9th position and Wade was up
to 7th.
Now they were both back pretty much together, where they could have
some competition with each other.
On lap 29 Wade was in 6th and Marco in 7th. Lap 38 found Wade
back in 8th and Marco again in 9th. By 44 of the 67 laps it was
Wade and Marco, 6 and 7 again. They were a good half lap behind
the leaders, Gregg and Camara. But all it takes is for a
yellow and two hot young talents like these guys are going to try to
show their skills.
On lap 48 Jon Herb brought out the yellow. The field bunched
up. Wade was in 5th and Marco 7th when this happened.
When the track went green on lap 56 Marco launched. He was in 3rd
by the end of the lap, and in 2nd by lap 57. While Marco’s move
put Wade back to 6th at the restart, Wade he started hauling, too, and
by 57 was he was in 4th. On the next lap Wade was right
behind second place Marco.
For those last ten laps it was Wade and Marco who put on the best show
of the day. It was all about who would get which seat on the podium
next to Gregg. In the end Wade’s frustrating experiences at the
Indianapolis oval and the Texas oval on that last lap attempt to win
were lessons learned. Now it was time to apply the lessons.
After all, that is what the Pro development series is about.
Hearing about that from Wade is best.
“We were just sitting back there half a lap in 5th or 6th or wherever
we were before and our lap times were not fast enough. We weren’t
going to catch the guys in front. There was nothing any one could
do. We were trying to drive the bottom and make the other guys go
around. Marco had the same problem.”
“So I was just praying for a yellow, and then it finally came. And then
when the restart came it was a golden opportunity and you just had to
take it. I knew I had to do something. I saw Marco going, so I
went three wide through the “D” and there’s not a lot of room
there. So I just followed him up high. We ran around the
field and he pulled away for a little bit. He just had that
momentum for a couple of laps.”
“Camara in 3rd and Simmons in 4th were pulling back a bit because
they were battling or whatever. [Wade wasted passed Simmons on lap 57 and Camara on 58.] So in the
next couple of laps I pulled Marco in by a few tenths of a
second. And I started working as hard as I could just to try to
set it [a pass] up. I wanted to get in front and I
couldn’t. What was happening was when I was sitting behind him it
allowed him to run whatever line he wanted. So he could take the
optimum line, dart out a little bit wider, and apex it out.”
“And then we ran the last two laps and I ran the outside and he ran the
inside the entire lap. So I was trying to work as hard as I could
to just get my nose beside him to push him low, and once they stay low,
slowly the speed comes off over a few laps. So I just pushed him
as hard as I could down low. By the time I got to Turn 4 on the
checkered flag lap he got off the gas, down shifted and I had that last
little drive to keep him low and it paid off and that’s what gave me
2nd.” [It was the closest 2nd in IRL history ; Wade ahead of Marco by 0.0009 seconds, 2.58 inches!]
“Getting speed was like squeezing blood from a stone. It was
really hard. I’m happy with my performance getting 2nd.
I’ve had five other 2nd’s and been disappointed every time, but this
was better than what I thought we could achieve.”
“We missed qualifying big time. That happens. So maybe we took a
bigger risk for the race and it paid off. It was pretty sweet on
a day like that. That’s the way racing goes I guess.”
After the Kentucky race, Marco Andretti had these comments to make:
“All we needed was a restart. That’s what I was hoping for.
We went for it. But Wade played it perfectly. I was inside
of him. He just didn’t leave me that much room, just perfect,
because it made me have to get out of it because I had big
understeer. Anyway, so he played that perfect. But the lap
before I was just ahead of him, so that’s what I was hoping for …. It
was a lot of fun actually.”
Regarding the next Pro race this coming Sunday Wade remarked, “For
Pikes Peak next weekend, as we look back at Milwaukee, I think it will
be the same people out front, as it was there. We’ll take what we
had for Kentucky and work towards a good set up at Pikes Peak and do
our best again like we do every weekend. At the moment it seems
like our best is good enough and so we’ll just keep going forward.”
These two rising stars, Wade Cunningham and Marco Andretti, put on a
fantastic show racing against each other, and it doesn’t matter whether
it is on a road coarse or on an oval. It looks like they both
have great futures ahead. They will meet up again on August 28 at
the Infineon Raceway road circuit.
Wade continues to hold the Manards Infiniti Pro Series points lead with
341, while Travis Gregg is now in second with 314 points. Jaime
Camara is third at 289.
For more about Wade go to his official web site: www.cunninghammotorsport.com and for Marco go to: www.andretti.com/andrettis/marco-andretti.asp
|
IPS Archive