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Marco Shows Road Course Mastery, Again! |
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August 28. With his third road show, Marco Andretti demonstrated
that regardless of his age, or anything else, he is the Pro Series
master of the road courses – and that includes winning both the poles
and the races. Not far behind Marco in consistency though is Wade
Cunningham. Three 2nd place finishes for Wade in each of
those three road races.
None-the-less, today’s race was anything but dull. Set in
California’s beautiful Napa Valley wine country, Sonoma’s Infineon
Raceway [formerly Sears Point International Raceway] twists around 12
turns on its 2.66 mile circuit, and offers drivers all the challenge
they could want. The cars go up hills and down hills, blaze along
an ultra fast section, through a blind turn and a tight switch back,
and around a 180 degree carrousel. It is a tough circuit to pass
on. With the 6-speed gearboxes, this meant each driver would be
doing about 1,400 gear shifts over the course of the 30 lap race.
The starting grid was pretty familiar with Marco in the front and Jeff
Simmons and Wade in the second row. Behind them were Sam Schmidt
Motorsports’ Chris Festa and Jaime Camara. The surprise on the
front row was a new rookie face, or should we say helmet, Bobby Wilson
in the Brian Stewart Racing #3 car formerly driven by more familiar
names like Unser and Luyendyk Jr. Bobby was last year’s Cooper
Tires Formula Ford 2000 Zetec Series champion and winner of four races
there. He was also Cunningham’s teammate there in the Zetec
Series.
The start had its moments. Cunningham got off to a better start
than Simmons, and was in 3rd after Turn 1. But in Turn 2 Andretti
and newcomer Bobby Wilson made contact and Bobby spun off thorough the
gravel. Wade, who had been following Bobby, found the gravel on
the track that Wilson had kicked up and ended up going through the
gravel himself and over the curb. By the time Wade was back under
control he was in 5th position. Wilson headed for the pits with a
tire problem and more. He stayed there for six laps before
returning to the race.
By this time Simmons was now in 2nd , Chris Festa in 3rd and Jaime
Camara held 4th. Marco now had a comfortable lead of
3.2300 seconds on Jeff.
At this point, Cunningham had to be concerned about the points
standings and where Travis Gregg and Jaime Carama were on the track, as they
were in 2nd and 3rd in the points respectively. Travis had
moved up a spot to 8th and Jaime was in front of him. At this
point, Wade turned it up.
On lap 2 he passed Camara. On lap 4 he was by Festa. Then
on lap 5 Camara had an incident in Turn 3 that brought out a full
course yellow. Two things then happened because of the
bunching up of the cars. Marco lost his significant lead over
Simmons, and Wade took advantage of the restart to pass Simmons and
take over 2nd, where he felt very at home [even though he really wanted
to be in 1st.] Now Marco’s lead was more like 0.6 seconds and
Wade was running laps as fast as was Marco. In the meantime,
Jeff, in 3rd, was more like 3.5 seconds behind Wade.  They are usually next to each other
From there the race went on for the rest of the 30 laps, with the order
Marco – Wade – Jeff. The gap between Marco and Wade stayed in the
0.6 – 0.9 second range, but Simmons gradually closed up his gap on
Wade. In the process, on lap 22 Jeff turned the fastest lap of
the race at 97.841 mph. By lap 27 Simmons had cut his gap with
Wade to under 0.3 seconds. Marco’s lead looked safe at 0.8838
seconds over Cunningham, so the drama was who would finish 2nd.
But as we all know, unexpected things can happen on the last couple of
laps of a race. On lap 29 Jon Herb spun in front of the
leaders! As Marco said after the race, “My spotter saved
me. He got on the radio. I saw the dust, but I didn’t know
if he was inside, outside. He just said, ‘Stay wide.’ We
got around him.” Cunningham and Simmons flinched, too. Wade
ended up finishing 1.0456 seconds behind Marco, and Jeff was another
0.3453 seconds behind Wade.
Nick Bussell ended up having another good drive with a 4th place finish
after starting 8th and steadily working his way up. Chris Festa
came in 5th and Travis Gregg finished 6th.
For Marco Andretti you just have to say he is for real on road courses
- a real talent! He is “booked” for one more Pro race, the final
road circuit of the season at Watkins Glen on September 25th.
He is clear that his long range goal is a Formula One championship, but
on the way he is looking forward to driving in the IndyCar
Series. The issue, though, Marco said about IndyCar is, “You
know, it’s primarily oval city, so that’s where I need my
experience. I think I’d be right there on the road
courses.” To help that happen he did say that he could possibly
race at the next Pro show, which is at Chicagoland’s 1.5 mile oval
track race on September 11 if everything comes together.
As for Wade Cunningham, his 2nd place finish was his 7th in 11 races,
and he has been in the top five in every race. He increased his
Series points lead over Travis Gregg to 33. Nick Bussell moved up
to 3rd in the points and Simmons up to 4th. Jeff has finished in
the top 5 in all of the last five races. Jaime Camara dropped
from 3rd down to 5th.
With only three more races the run for the championship is the closest
ever in the history of the Pro Series. The drama and suspense is
going to be awesome. The two ovals, Chicago [1.5 mile] and
California [2.0 mile], will be about pure speed. Last year Thiago
Medeiros was on the pole at both with speeds of 190.770 and 189.831
mph, respectively. Travis Gregg will like those two tracks as
will Jaime Camara. They have both won on big ovals this
year. Jeff Simmons will like both, as will Nick Bussell. As
for Wade Cunningham, he has shown that he can finish second
consistently on anything that is larger than 1.0 mile, oval or road
course!
Finishing order: Andretti, Cunningham, Simmons, Bussell, Festa, Gregg, Roth, Drake, Herb, Mansell, Wilson, Camara, Mayer.
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