March 30.  Wade Cunningham’s first Menards Infiniti Pro Series race was at the Homestead – Miami Speedway on March 6.  Homestead is a 1.5 mile oval.  This race was also Wade’s first on an oval track.  He qualified seventh, and finished fourth.

Wade had the following analysis of the race:  “Qualifying didn’t go as well as we would have liked.  We had problems in the fuel tanks and couldn’t siphon the petrol into the lines, so it was like we would run out of petrol in turn four.  As a result we started further down in the order than we should have.”

The race itself was a totally new experience for Wade.  The Pro Series cars were faster than anything he had raced before.  And then there was the oval.  Wade had spent time earlier talking with the Series driving coach, Rick Mears, about what to expect.  Rick had explained that there are a lot of things you can do on an oval that you can’t do on road courses, where Wade had all of his experience.  So Rick had explained issues such as running in traffic, running behind another car, running in a draft, and the effects of another car coming up close behind you.  There are some things that it’s better to learn from Rick, than to learn for yourself by trial and error!

Wade appeared cautious on the start of the race, and dropped all the way back to last place (twelfth).  Was this a car problem?  Maybe Wade just wanted to get a feel for the car, the track, the competition, passing and the traffic before he really started racing.  On lap eight he found out how fast his car was, and ran the fastest lap of the race, 188.139 mph (only Travis Gregg’s qualifying lap of 189.256 mph was faster.).  Now he was in ninth position, but then was back to eleventh by lap 21.  At that point it appeared that he was comfortable, and ready to go racing. 

By lap 44 Wade was up to seventh position.  On 45 he passed Marty Roth for sixth.  Nick Bussell was next.  He got by him on lap 48.  Now he was in fifth.  Ahead was Jay Drake.  On lap 57 Wade took over fourth position, where he stayed for the final ten laps of the race. 

Regarding the race, Wade summarized by saying that he had been a little bit cautious at the start and ended up getting stuck back in the pack.  “By the time we had worked our way up to fourth, and were catching the third place car, we just ran out of laps.”  But he added, “It was the first time behind cars this fast, but I could pass other cars, and actually did a lot of passing.  We also worked well in the drafts.”

What was the bottom line for Wade?  “All in all, the race wasn’t too bad!”