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Cunningham Puts Name on 100th Race |
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August 1, 2009 – Sparta. Auckland, New Zealand’s Wade Cunningham sure knows how to win the BIG races this season. At the IMS in May, he became the first Lights’ driver to win a second Freedom 100. And he did it on the 100th anniversary of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. [It was only the 93rd Indy 500 this year.] Today it was the Kentucky 100 race that Wade and Sam Schmidt Motorsports won. It was a historic IRL race because it was the 100th Firestone Indy Lights race since the Series started at Kansas Speedway on July 8, 2002.
Cunningham was in the limelight for this race before it even started. In a July 29, www.indycar.com interview with Roger Bailey, who has been the IRL executive director of the Series since its beginning, about the first 99 races, he was asked which drivers stood out most in his mind. He answered, “Alex Lloyd, Raphael Matos, Richard Antinucci, Wade Cunningham have all stood out.”
Then there was a voters poll from the Series fans on the top three drivers since the Series started. The winners were Alex Lloyd, Travis Gregg and Wade Cunningham. For Wade, the pressure was on to make Roger Bailey, the fans and himself look good at Kentucky!
Like the Freedom 100, the Kentucky 100 was a high drama thriller also. Because of rain, which eliminated on- track qualification, the starting order was based on driver’s season points. Thus, the first two rows were J. R. Hildebrand on the pole and next to him, his teammate Sebastian Saavedra. In the second row was Mario Romancini and Wade Cunningham in that order. The drama started when Hildebrand dropped out on the pace lap due to car problems.
When the 67 laps were over on the 1.5 mile oval Kentucky Speedway race there were 16 of the 19 starting cars still running. There had been six lead changes and four race leaders. The race had only two yellows – one for the first 6 laps and the second for the last 3 laps. In between, they raced uninterrupted, two and three wide, wheel-to-wheel, in groups and bunches of 3 and 4 and 5 with constant passing. And they raced in the high 180’s and low 190’s. With no pit stops for this Series [except for one rainy race] all the position and lead changes were on the track for the fans to see and cheer. And with the best field of competition that this Series has had going back to 2002, here is how Wade Cunningham put together his strategy to win.
Sebastian Saavedra, AFS Racing/Andretti Green Racing, led from the start, with Mario Romancini, RLR/Andersen Racing, in 2nd. Wade’s teammate, James Hinchcliffe, started right behind him but slipped by on the start and was in 3rd. Wade was in 4th with his white, number 11 car with the red letters “LUCAS” on the sides, nose and front wings. Behind him in 5th was James Davison, Vision Racing. That order lasted until lap 8 when Davison passed Cunningham.
On lap 11, Hinchcliffe passed Romancini, swapping 2nd and 3rd places. That was followed by Cunningham’s move on lap 12 when he took his 4th place back from Davidson. On lap 15, another of Wade’s teammates, Ana Beatriz, who was in 6th, followed in his draft and they both passed up both Davidson and Romancini.
By lap 17, the order was now Saavedra, followed by three Sam Schmidt cars – Hinchcliffe, Cunningham and Beatriz, in that order. On the next lap, Wade showed he could pass Hinchcliffe and moved into 2nd but on 19 James retook 2nd.
Lap 21 saw Hinchcliffe pass Saavedra for the first lead change in the race. On lap 26 it was Ana Beatriz’s turn to take over the lead – for two laps – before Hinchcliffe made the 3rd lead change on lap 28. Saavedra was then in 2nd, Ana in 3rd and Wade in 4th.
On lap 30, Davison passed Cunningham, moving Wade down to 5th, but only for 3 laps. Then Wade showed him that he had the speed to take back 4th. It was now time to make his move to get to the front.
On lap 36 Wade passed Ana to take over 3rd place. He held that position for 3 laps and then made his next move on lap 39 slipping past Saavedra to move into 2nd place. 4 laps later his teammate, Hinchcliffe, got a look at Wade’s speed. On lap 43 Wade was out in clean air and in the lead.
Sebastian did not give up easily though and set Wade up to pass him on lap 52 and reclaim the lead. But true to form, Cunningham allowed Saavedra to enjoy the lead for only 3 laps before re-passing him on lap 55. Wade then stretched out his lead over Sebastian and turned in the fastest leader lap on lap 60 with a 190.535 mph statement! Whatever thoughts Saavedra might have had about one more shot at Wade on the last lap of the race were lost because of the yellow on the last 3 of the 67 laps when Hinchcliffe spun out on the backstretch.
The now historic podium was made up of Cunningham, Saavedra and Ana Beatriz – the later who had taken advantage of Hinchcliffe’s spin.
Wade said after the race: “It was a difficult race, even when I was in the lead those last 25-28 laps. Sebastian had a very strong car, and the car behind him dropped into a taller gear, which, that’s how I got him but I knew he was going to be able to make a run. He was pushing his car in a way that maybe he may have damaged his front tires, because he wasn’t as strong the last 10 laps as he was before, and I was able to take advantage of that.” What he didn’t mention was that he also knew what lines to take on the track – low, high, middle – on which parts of the track to keep Saavadra from being able to pass him on various laps.
Wade Cunningham had made himself, his team, his fans, Sam Schmidt and Roger Bailey all look good. For Sam it was his 30th win over the first 100 Lights races. As for Wade, it was his 28th podium finish and his 7th win. In addition, his 22 laps led upped his career total up to 716, the most of any driver in the 100 Lights races. He also leads in the most races led, with 21.
As we said in the beginning, Wade Cunningham knows how to win the BIG ones, and he does it with great style and class. His experience pays off.
And who won the 1st of the 100 Lights races back in 2002? It was A. J. Foyt IV! He went on to win the Series championship that year. So it seems most appropriate to have a Series champion win the 100th race – Wade with his 2005 championship.
The driver points standing is now: Hildebrand [17th ] 385, Saavedra 345, Cunningham 320, Romancini [10th ] 293 and Hinchcliffe [7th ] 293 - tied.
And lastly, a tribute to Tony George is due for these remarkable 100 races. It was his vision that created this great IRL development series.
In a 2005 story fromthetrack.com did an interview with Tony about the Pro/Lights Series. Tony gave the below answer to the following question:
What was the general idea behind your starting the Pro Series as a feeder series?
"I want to say as early as 2000 I’d been approached by a couple of car manufacturers that were interested in building a development series car….At that time we had our hands full with the IRL itself, trying to get it established on a development track. But about three years ago we decided that the series was going better [and] what we needed was a ladder system more focused on preparing young drivers to run on ovals at high speed and in close quarters and in a [separate] series, and so a pilot….was designed to do that.
So Dallara took, I believe, the Spanish Formula 3 car that was running with a Nissan engine and developed it to run over here on ovals. They made some minor modifications to it and it has proven to be a good car. It has given us a series with lower horsepower that provides a fairly substantial race speed condition that allows a lot of drivers to get a sense for what it’s like racing that close as they do in the IndyCar Series. Again there really wasn’t a series that prepared drivers, whether they come from sprints or midgets or from other forms of formula racing, for the type of racing action that’s taking place in the Indy Racing League."
Thanks Tony!
The next race is at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course on August 9.
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