That certainly had the same kind of drama that California had last year between you, Simmons and Gregg.  

Yah.   I’d say even more.  

Would you say that Chicago was the toughest race you had in your two Pro years?

 I’d say so, yes.

Harv Sweezie [one of Wade’s mechanics] told me that after the Chicago race the name “Firestone” wasn’t on any of your tires any more.  It had been worn off from contact with other cars.  

Yah, all four of them were gone.

Aside from winning the title last year, how would you compare the two seasons in terms of improved driving ability considering that last year you drove on a conservative basis with the goal of finishing races.  That was your number one priority and winning was number two.  Didn’t this year sort of end up being turned the opposite way?  

Yah, winning was number one this year and that is what kind of got us into trouble at Homestead, trying to get to the lead straight away.  But, you know, we didn’t have any accidents this year either!  So obviously, you can push 100%, avoid accidents and keep all four wheels on the track and on the car.  In the last two years, I haven’t crashed out of a race – on my own.  I had the one accident at Chicago last year.  I raced hard the whole time this year.  

Was this year at Chicago sort of a redemption?  That accident which Drake and McCune started then resulted in Sarah shooting across the track and totaling your car.  That accident was certainly no cause or fault of yours, nor was there any way for you to have avoided it.  But, did going back to Chicagoland bring back any memories of that or had you just moved on?  

No, honestly I didn’t even think about it once.

Well you certainly drove like that was never a factor.  What would you say were your improvements this year compared to last year?  

Uhm, I’d say I improved as a driver, but the team improved with me.  So everything got better.  Doug and I pushed each other a bit more.  We improved the car.  I improved.  It was just a continuous development so we just got faster and faster.  And we were able to race from the front.  That was the biggest difference.  

What about the winning thing?  Last year you were driving to finish and you know that you can do that successfully and not crash cars.  But you said this year was about winning.  So now, you were, in a certain sense, stepping it up a level in terms of your aggressiveness and yet, as you said, you had to find that edge where you can be really aggressive, but not go over the edge and end up crashing the car.  

Well, you’ve pretty much answered the question.  That’s pretty much fit to a “T”.

But how do you determine with the car … ah …, I know A. J. Foyt used to talk about being able to feel where that edge was and when the car was just starting to break lose, rather than some guys not being able to feel that point and either don’t get close enough to it or end up going over that edge?

Well, at races like Chicago it was almost like there was no edge.  You could just keep pushing, you could drive three wide, you could drive right up to the wall and it really didn’t matter what you did because the car just kept going and you stayed on the track.  You are in the pack and you are doing just half of it.  Normally you wouldn’t try that, but on a track like that it was almost like there was no limit on the car. [Wade led 35 of 67 race laps at Chicago.]

You said this year the quality of the drivers, particularly the rookies, was improved a lot.  Was that on both the ovals and the road courses?   

Definitely, on the ovals there were more drivers who could do well this year.  It was funny on the road courses, the people who you thought or expected to do well this year didn’t.   Obviously the two people who came in for one event, [Raphael] Matos and [Graham] Rahal, were very good.  And of people in the Series full time, I’d say Alex Lloyd and I were the two who were at the front the whole time.

What were the benefits of having a second year in the Pro Series?  

I think that I hardened a lot in the race-craft.  If you look at Indy, you know, I won that battle with Jay. Look at the first race at Infineon I won this year.  I had Lloyd behind me for all 30 laps, every lap.  And if you look at the last race, Chicago, it was a battle and I won that.  So I think I’ve got good race-craft now.  I don’t have to have everything going my way to win, you know, I can battle to win.

It looked to me like you learned a lot this year that would have been more difficult to learn at the Indy car level had you moved up at the start of this year.  Then you would have had to learn those things at the Indy car level where you are dealing with better drivers, faster and more expensive cars, more media attention and broader negative PR if things went wrong.  

I don’t really think that’s the case.  I think it just allowed me to develop this year.  It was good to be in a situation where I didn’t have to relearn everything for another year.  It would have been a rush to go up to Indy cars this year and try to learn everything   This has allowed me to develop a lot quicker as a driver and now it will make the next jump a lot easier.

Was this your last year with Brian Stewart Racing?

I would hope so, in a positive way, but I would never say never.

I know that you had the total support of a truly a great team behind you for the last two seasons.  How did they fit into the equation and the results?  

Obviously, they were great to work with.  The car only let me down at Indy this year on the road course, but other than that we had a 100% record for finishing races.  So I’m not going to complain about that.  And I’m not going to point the finger. The crew’s a good team.  

Doug Zister is a great engineer.  I think we proved that again at Milwaukee.  We were 3 mph faster than everyone else on that short track, which is quite a lot.  Obviously also, it was really Doug Zister’s doing when we got the pole at the Indy oval, which is the opposite size track.  

The engineering was great, and it was again when we rolled out the car at Sonoma.  We had a great car there, too, with the pole and a win as well.  So I can’t complain about anything with the team.  They were fantastic workers.  

Dave Metcalf was a great crew chief and we only had one mechanical failure in two years.  He has nothing to be ashamed about for this year either.

Harv Sweezie, our mechanic, was also a great part of our team. He’s a hard worker and it was really good to have him as well.   

Our team manager, Doug Hoy, is fun to work with. He caters to his drivers and he knows how to work with people, which is important, especially when they are trying to develop drivers.  He was also my spotter again this year.  

And then, Brian Stewart is just Brian!  You don’t really need to say anything about Brian. He is just the same great guy day in and day out.  

Brian has that legendary reputation of developing great drivers, and it looks like you are just another one on the way through Brian Stewart Racing and on the way up.  

Hopefully!

Well, what an outstanding 2006 season you’ve had.  You won poles and races on both road and oval courses.  You really led in all of the categories other than points.  And even there you amazingly ended up 3rd, only 11 points away from a another championship, and that after missing two races.   I can’t imagine your being in a better situation to pick up an Indy car ride for next year.

I think that we weren’t ready for one this year, but now with what we’ve proven, I think that I am. So, we’ll see what happens.

Thanks Wade.  Ciao.

Ciao.

>>> How ready is Wade to move up to the IndyCar Series level next year, and how well do we think he might do?

This year we have seen some teams in both the Pro and IndyCar Series who have run different drivers for the road races than they did for the ovals, simply because they did not have complete drivers who were competitive on both types of tracks.  We won’t mention team names, but at the IndyCar level teams who are serious about winning championships would prefer drivers the likes of Dixon, Kanaan, Wheldon and Castroneves, all of whom have shown that they can win on both road and oval courses.
 
Of the 50+ drivers who have entered Pro Series races over the last two years since road course races were added to the schedules only 8 have won two or more races.  Of those 8, only 2 have won on both road and oval courses – Wade Cunningham and Jeff Simmons.

Wade, however, is the only one who also has won poles on both types of courses.  Additionally, he is the only driver to have led every lap, from start to finish, in both road and oval events.  His poles are – 2 road courses and 3 ovals, while his wins are– 1 road course and 3 ovals.

Wade Cunningham certainly did live up to the expectations of the number “1” on his red and black Brian Stewart Racing car this season.  He won the most poles, 4, the most races, 3, and lead the most laps, 314, which is more that 50% of  all 12 of the season’s race total of 608, even though he was only in 10.   We have to agree with Wade, that he was clearly the dominant Pro driver of the 2006 season.

Most impressive, perhaps, was that in every one of the 7 races he led, he led more than half of the laps and he did that on both ovals and road courses.  And Wade did all of this without a single race accident.  With such a performance, he certainly should be on “The Fast Track to Indy”!  We hope the track to Indy is fast enough to see him in the 500 next year!  

Considering everything, on a good IndyCar team, we think Wade has the potential to be another rookie of the year and a future champion at that level. As for the Indy 500, he already knows something about winning at The Brickyard.   

To follow Wade Cunningham’s career go to: www.wadecunningham.com

To follow Brian Stewart Racing go to: www.brianstewartracing.ca

To follow the Pro Series go to the official IRL site: www.indycar.com/pro

Our thanks to Wade Cunningham for sharing his 2006 story with us and our readers.  A special thanks also to Brian Stewart Racing’s Harv Sweezie for keeping us up to date throughout the season on the team’s efforts to be the best in the Pro Series.  And one other thanks and recognition, to Joe Mobley for sponsoring the Mo’s Gold IPS Chief Mechanic of the Year Award.