Indianapolis, Ind. – Juncos Racing picked up two podium finishes this past weekend in Round 5 and 6 of the Pro Mazda Championship Presented by Cooper Tires at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Rinus VeeKay took third in Round 5 and teammate Carlos Cunha finished second in Round 6 of the Royal Purple Synthetic Oil Grand Prix of Indianapolis Supporting the Lupus Foundation of America.

The third weekend of the Pro Mazda season kicked off with two test and two practice sessions. Qualifying for Round 5 followed with Rinus VeeKay in the No. 2 Jumbo/Juncos Racing car qualified second, Robert Megennis in the No. 9 Palo Alto /Juncos Racing car qualified fifth, and Carlos Cunha in the No. 1 CarlosCunha.com.br/Juncos Racing car qualified sixth. Qualifying for Round 6 followed with Megennis qualifying fourth, VeeKay fifth, and Cunha seventh.

 

Round 5 began with VeeKay and Cunha taking advantage of a great start when the green flag waved, making their way to the front of the pack. On Lap-2 of the 25-lap race Megennis was forced to come in for a nose change and new tires. During the single file restart after a full course yellow on Lap-5 Cunha went off course and lost multiple positions. The team would battle their way back to the front throughout the race and pick up a podium finish with VeeKay claiming third. Cunha finished just off the podium in fourth.

 

Photo Credit: Patagonia Solutions

 

Round 6 concluded the weekend on the 2.439 mile, 14-Turn road course. Cunha, who led half of the race would settle for a second-place finish, picking up the second podium for the team this weekend. Megennis finished eighth. Teammate VeeKay was unable to finish the race after an early incident ended his day during the first laps of the race.

Photo Credit: Patagonia Solutions

 

Team Owner Ricardo Juncos said, “Pro Mazda is so competitive this year. There are a lot of good drivers and good cars. You can be just .20 off and be 10^th. We are still dealing with some reliability issues, but the team is doing an excellent job and putting in a lot of hours to fix these issues. Last night the team was here until 2:00am working on all three cars. I cannot put into words what an incredible group we have from the drivers to the crew. All three drivers are very talented, and I am confident they will continue to find success. I am looking forward to the first oval of the season in a few weeks at Lucas Oil Raceway.”

 

Juncos Racing continues to lead the team championship standings after six races.

 

Driver Quotes:

Carlos Cunha No. 1 CarlosCunha.com.br/Juncos Racing: “The weekend started really well for us finishing P1 in practice. Some things went wrong after that and we worked on figuring out the set up and also had to do an engine change.I think the part of the problem was brakes. A break broke yesterday and I think we had the same problem today.The team did a great job getting everything figured out and worked really hard to find a good set up. Today, we had a good set up and led most of the laps, but unfortunately, we didn’t have the pace at the end to keep up with Parker Thompson. We were so close to winning this weekend but had to settle for a podium finish. We still have a lot of the season left and I know we can win!”

Rinus VeeKay No. 2 Jumbo/Juncos Racing: “It felt great being back on pace again after Barber for both qualifying and practice. Race 1 was a good day with a podium finish. But in Race 2 I was too close to the car in front of me. Right when the green flag waved the cars in front of me touched which made me fly over the rear wheel of the car in front of me. There was too much damage on the car for us to continue racing. I am still second in the standings and I know there are more points to made up on the oval so I am really looking forward to racing at Lucas Oil Raceway. I want to thank Juncos Racing for working so hard and giving me a competitive car!

Robert Megennis No. 9 Paloalto/Juncos Racing: “The weekend started out really well. I qualified fifth for the first race and fourth for the second race. Once we got to the races everything just fell apart. It was a rough weekend. We had an alternator failure in the first race, it wouldn’t allow me to slow down so I drove into another driver, wrecked the car and had to pit. I ended up with a DNF in that race. Race 2 I had a great start. I started fourth and made my way up to second before turn one but then got taken out in turn two and that put me a lap down. We got the car restarted. Even though I was a lap down I drove by everyone up to second place, which was a lot of fun. It also showed me that the car had really good pace. We have had some bad luck, but I am sure we are going to win some races.”

 

 

The 2018 Pro Mazda Championship continues later May 24^th–May 25^th at Lucas Oil Raceway with Round 7.