Pitstop: Baird six points up heading into next leg of Carrera Cup

After successfully defending his national Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge championship title in New Zealand, Craig Baird has his sights on adding the WPS Carrera Cup Australia to his impressive CV.

Baird heads into this weekend's Australia round at Wakefield Park with a six point lead after winning two of the three races at the first round, at the Clipsal 500 meeting in Adelaide in March.

Baird also won three of the four Michelin Porsche GT3 Cup car races at the Australian Formula 1 Grand Prix in March, and with 2004 Carrera Cup Australia champion Alex Davison, is joint favourite to win this year's WPS Carrera Cup contest.

Young gun lines up

Also competing at Wakefield Park this weekend is Palmerston North young gun Chris Pither.

The 19-year-old former single-seater standout is this year driving a Kanga Loaders Ford AU Falcon in the second-tier Fujitsu V8 Supercar (nee Development) series.

Expat Kiwi Mark Porter, now based on Queensland's Gold Coast, lies fifth in the Fujitsu V8 Supercar series points standings with Parker NZED NZ V8s champion Kayne Scott ninth and Pither tenth.

Kiwis at Indianapolis

The eyes of the racing world were on Wade Cunningham this morning as the 21-year-old Aucklander attempted to win the Indianapolis 500-supporting Freedom 100 race for Indy Pro Series cars.

Defending Indy Pro Series champion Cunningham on Thursday claimed pole position for this morning's 100-mile race with a dominant two lap average time of 1.36.5546 at 298.27 km/h.

Cunningham is one of three Kiwi drivers competing at the Indy 500 meeting. Matthew Hamilton starts in the Indy Pro Series race and 2003 Indy Racing League champion Scott Dixon starts in Monday's Indianapolis 500 from the second row.

Brother at Japan karts

Wade Cunningham's younger brother Mitch is competing at the revitalised World Cup Karting meeting in Japan. Suzuka replaced World Cup meetings with an Asia-Pacific meeting in 2000.

Forty of the world's best professional karters are entered for the Formula A class and 38 for the supporting ICA category.

Reid after points

Also competing in Japan this weekend is Jonny Reid, the former national kart and Formula Ford champion and A1GP team member, lining up with the ING team at the third round of the All-Japan Formula 3 Championship.

Reid, 22, was a race-winner last year and is looking at moving up the overall points table from fourth place where he stands after two meetings.

Smith's Barbagallo debut

Technically, 18-year-old Waiuku rider Sam Smith will make his Australian Supersport Championship debut at Perth's Barbagallo Raceway this weekend. But the rider some compare to a young Graeme Crosby is already something of an old hand when it comes to racing across the Tasman.

At the Barry Sheene Memorial Classic meeting at the Eastern Creek Raceway in Sydney, Smith won the feature race and set a new category lap record on Aucklander Peter Lodge's ES2 Norton.