October 17.  The 2005 Menard's Infiniti Pro Series season is over and Wade Cunningham finished the California 100 with two titles that he did not have at the start: Race Winner and 2005 Menards Infiniti Pro Series Champion.

In a performance that capped a truly memorable year for the rookie from New Zealand, Wade Cunningham,  contended for the lead during the entire race, and defended his position on the last lap like a seasoned veteran to emerge with his first ever Infiniti Pro Series victory.

The starting grid appeared that it might present a challenge for Cunningham.  Uncharacteristically he had not been particularly fast in practice and qualified only in fifth.  Not surprising, Travis Gregg was fastest in both practice sessions and was on the pole.  Surrounding him were his Sam Schmidt Motorsports teammates Jaime Camara in second and Chris Festa right behind him in third.  Surprisingly Marty Roth qualified fourth.  The good news for Wade, however, was that Jeff Simmons, who had been third fastest in both practice sessions, only qualified seventh.  He would start right behind Cunningham.

In the race for the Series points championship, Gregg would only have a chance if Cunningham did not start the race.  Simmons could possibly win if Cunningham finished lower than 10th.  The 14-car field after qualification was now down to 12 for the race.  After final practice separate accidents had taken out Cunningham’s teammate Bobby Wilson and first time rookie starter Geoff Dodge. It was also open as to which of the three would end up second in the Series championship.  Unquestionably, both Gregg and Simmons would be going for the win.  Cunningham’s goal was to first to make sure that he ended up with the championship.

The rain-delayed race began though with Cunningham again showing how good he is on starts.  With perfect timing, he was quickly in second place before Jay Drake hit the Turn 4 wall on the first lap, bringing out the yellow.  Drake was out of the race. Gregg had just lost any protection that Camara and Festa might have provided relative to Cunningham.  Simmons followed Cunningham on the start and made it into fourth, behind Camara, before the yellow.

When the green flag waved again on Lap 13, Jaime Camara fell back three positions from 3rd to 6th and Jeff Simmons, running stong, took over third place.  On the very next lap, Cunningham passed Gregg for the lead and two laps later, Simmons passed Gregg to take over second place.  At this point, all three cars were vying for the lead.  However, by Lap 17, Cunningham and Gregg began to work together to pull away from the field.

For the next 15 laps, Cunningham and Gregg continued to trade the lead, running side-by-side at times. During this battle, Simmons was also a factor, maintaining safe possession of third until Lap 35 when he passed Gregg right before the track went yellow because of moisture in Turn 1.

As the field restarted on Lap 40, the running order was Cunningham, Simmons, Gregg, Festa, and Bussell.  Travis Gregg got an incredible restart with good momentum and was able to pass both Simmons and Cunningham for the lead on the backstretch.

Simmons and Cunningham continued to work together though and reeled Gregg back in and by Lap 43 the order was again Cunningham, Simmons, Gregg as the trio continued to battle around the entire length of the track.  At this point in the race there had been 15 lead changes between Cunningham and Gregg. Cunningham and Simmons continued to use the draft to pull a larger lead out on the rest of the field.  Both going flat out, on lap 46, by drarfting, they both turned in laps at over 192 mph, and by lap 48, it was clear that only one of those two drivers would have a chance of winning the race.

With one lap left, Jeff Simmons attempted to make a final pass of Cunningham on the inside of Turn 1/2, but the two made contact and Simmons had to back out of the pass to save his racecar.  The field came around to the checkered flag with Cunningham the victor and season points champion.  Jeff Simmons finished a strong second to cap off an incredible run of victories and strong finishes in the second half of the season.

Cunningham summarized the season and the effort by saying, "I definitely felt people would talk if I won the championship without ever winning a race. But if that was the case, it wasn't the true scenario of the year we've had. We led at St. Pete, we led on the Indy oval, we led at Watkins Glen, we led at Milwaukee, we've been second at pretty much every other track on the calendar this year. We've always battled at the front, always been at the lead. It's always the stupid things that went wrong. Most of the time, stuff I couldn't control. Today when those things didn't happen, we were strong and we took the win."

If seven second place finishes and a points lead going into the last race is what happens when things go wrong, it's hard to think of what might happen when things go right for Wade Cunningham...  It seems clear that the rest of the world is about to find out.

The final finishing order from California was:

1. (5) Wade Cunningham, Dallara-Infiniti, 50, Running
2. (7) Jeff Simmons, Dallara-Infiniti, 50, Running
3. (1) Travis Gregg, Dallara-Infiniti, 50, Running
4. (3) Chris Festa, Dallara-Infiniti, 50, Running
5. (6) Nick Bussell, Dallara-Infiniti, 50, Running
6. (10) Arie Luyendyk Jr., Dallara-Infiniti, 50, Running
7. (4) Marty Roth, Dallara-Infiniti, 50, Running
8. (14) P.J. Abbott, Dallara-Infiniti, 49, Running
9. (13) Jon Herb, Dallara-Infiniti, 47, Running
10. (2) Jaime Camara, Dallara-Infiniti, 45, Running
11. (9) Taylor Fletcher, Dallara-Infiniti, 7, Accident
12. (12) Jay Drake, Dallara-Infiniti, 0, Accident