Motorsport: Cuningham out to increase Menards Series lead

Young New Zealand racing driver Wade Cunningham will try to increase his lead in the 2005 Menards Infiniti Pro Series points standings at the Nashville Superspeedway in Tennessee this weekend.

Cunningham, 20, reclaimed the lead in the series from 27-year-old American oval specialist Travis Gregg at the Liberty 100 at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway last month.

He is 10 point in front of Gregg who has a 36-point lead over Brazilian Jamie Camara and 39 points ahead of another teammate Chris Festa.

Though former Speedway Sprintcar star Gregg is being touted as the oval course expert, Cunningham has proved a quick learner, finishing a close second to Camara at the Futaba Future 100 race on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway oval and second -- again by less than a car length -- to Gregg in the Texas 100 on the high-speed Texas Motor Speedway.

Gregg and his Sam Schmidt Motorsports teammates Camara and Festa have proved a formidable force in qualifying, particularly at the oval course events where they can work together to make the most of the aerodynamic "draft"".

Cunningham headed to Nashville buoyed by the fact that he topped the time sheets at his two most recent oval track tests, one at Nashville's 2km (1.3 mile) speedway and the other at the Milwaukee Mile.

The Nashville track is concrete.

This weekend"s round marks the half-way point for the Menards Infinity Pro Series.

2005 Menards Infiniti Pro Series points after round five of 14:

1 Cunningham 227, 2 Travis Gregg 217, 3 Jamie Camara 181, 4 Chris Festa 178, 5 Jon Herb 171, 6 Nick Bussell 170.

- NZPA