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Lloyd Wins Series Record Eighth With Victory In Iowa 100

NEWTON, Iowa ? Alex Lloyd wasn’t compelled to be the leader of the entire Iowa 100 at Iowa Speedway. The 115th was the money lap.

The Indy Pro Series points leader bided his time, sizing up pole sitter Wade Cunningham, before seizing the lead on Lap 106. He made it stick.

Lloyd, driving the No. 7 Lucas Oil/Isilon Systems/Sam Schmidt Motorsports car, became the Indy Pro Series’ career victory leader by leading Cunningham across the line by 0.3927 of a second in the inaugural race at Iowa Speedway. It was win No. 8 — separating him from Jeff Simmons, Mark Taylor and Thiago Medeiros ? over two seasons (16 starts).

“This is great,” said Lloyd, who started second. “With 10 laps to go, I was so pumped up. I knew this was the time if we were going to win the race, this was the time to get it done. Up until then, I had been patient and I thought there might be a gap going into Turn 1 but I didn’t want to show that too soon knowing that he could defend that. I left it until the very last minute and saw it as my chance, got it down there and he gave me just enough room. We had a very good race.”

Cunningham, the 2005 Indy Pro Series champion, earned his first SWE Race Car Parts pole start of the season and led 105 laps. He tied his season-high finish.

“We did a very good job today in traffic,” said Cunningham, driving the No. 27 AFS Racing car. “I built a lot of gaps that way but the cautions caused us to lose that advantage. I was very happen to have a second.”

Super Aguri Panther Racing’s Hideki Mutoh, who ended Lloyd’s streak of five consecutive victories to start the season, finished third. Lloyd’s teammate, Ryan Justice, was fourth. Team KMA’s Robbie Pecorari advanced eight positions to tie his best finish of fifth.

“This was just great,” Pecorari said. “We struggled a little with our speed earlier during practice and qualifying, but we made some changes that helped ? and we gained some from some of the incidents that happened ahead of us. I didn’t like to see that, but we came out fifth, so it was a great weekend for us. This track is just awesome. It’s a shorter track than we’re used to running, but the racing was fast and close. That’s just great for the fans and great for the series.”

Logan Gomez, the third Sam Schmidt Motorsports driver in the field, finished sixth. Al Unser III posted his best result since re-joining the Indy Pro Series in the No. 12 Playa Del Racing car (seventh after starting 19th). Michael Crawford Motorsports driver Marc Williams also had a career day, advancing 13 spots to eighth.

Bobby Wilson, who won the second race last week on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course, finished ninth in the No. 1 Brian Stewart Racing car. Ben Petter, also driving a Michael Crawford Motorsports car, filled out the top 10 of 22 cars.

Guthrie Racing’s Sean Guthrie, who qualified a career-high third, suffered a displaced left foot fracture when his car made contact with the Turn 4 SAFER Barrier, skidded across the racing surface and infield grass and made contact with the pit wall.

“The car was so good all weekend, and we were running with the leaders the entire race before the accident,” said Guthrie, who was running fourth at the time of the incident on Lap 79. “It’s just a shame for our whole team. For some reason, I didn’t have the straightline speed the other guys in front of me had. We were coming up to lapped traffic and I had to back out a bit, and then the car stepped out on me and I ended up hitting the inside wall pretty hard.

“I don’t know if we would have stayed in the top three, but we had a top-five car for sure.”

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