After winning numerous championships in his native New Zealand, Scott Dixon left his hometown of Auckland for the United States to further his racing career. Now, another young driver from Auckland, Jonny Reid, is hoping to follow in the footsteps of New Zealand's first Indianapolis 500 winner.
Reid, like Dixon, was a champion of New Zealand's Formula Ford series, but chose to compete in Europe and A1GP before switching to the oval-based racing. He made his Firestone Indy Lights and oval debut at Indianapolis, finishing 20th in the Firestone Freedom 100 in a car prepared by Integra Motorsports. A week later at Milwaukee, he was 15th. At Iowa, two weeks ago, the Kiwi finally showed real signs of his racing potential, running as high as sixth place before crashing out of the event ten laps from the finish.
"Iowa was obviously my best oval, even though I had a mishap," Reid admitted, "I was quite satisfied because we were probably the third-quickest car on the track. We had started 16th and had improved the car a lot from qualifying for the race. Everybody kept positive and worked really hard. It was great to work with such a team of guys and pull forward in the race."
Now Reid, whose grandfather was an oval racer in New Zealand, returns to his roots in road racing. He'll make his first start on a road course at the Corning Duels event at Watkins Glen this weekend, and got his first glimpse of the famed eleven-turn 3.4-mile layout during last week's test.
"We were quick as anyone and didn't use all of our tyres, which is quite pleasing," he reported, "We know we have a good car over the race distance. I think we can be very strong during the race weekend."
However, while racing on road courses is familiar, contesting a pair of 100-mile races on the same day may be a new experience, despite similar experiences in A1GP and other series.
"I haven't done anything like it really," Reid confirmed, "I did Japanese F3 and they race twice in the same day, but the races are much shorter than this. I've come from A1GP, which is quite a physical car and much longer races. They race twice in the weekend, but one is a feature and one is a sprint. I think, physically, I can handle racing two in one day - you just have to be careful in the first one.
"But you always try to be a little bit careful when it comes to racing."
![Johnny Reid - Integra Motorsports [pic credit: IRL/McQueeney]](http://pix.crash.net/thumbs/459239.jpg)
