Second Cunningham brother back in the drivers seat at Watkins Glen

Mitch Cunningham returns to the driving seat with Brian Stewart Racing at the eighth round of the 2008 Firestone Indy Lights championship at New York State's Watkins Glen circuit this weekend.

The 21-year-old younger brother of 2005 Indy Lights champion Wade Cunningham, Mitch signed a road-course contract with the team at the beginning of the year.

However Saturday's double-header meeting at Watkins Glen is only the second road-course meeting on the 2008 schedule.

"For that reason alone," he said from his base in Indianapolis this morning,"I've been looking forward to this weekend since Hamilton."

The inaugural Hamilton 400 V8 Supercar meeting in April, where he competed in the non-championship Toyota Racing Series races, was in fact the last meeting the younger Cunningham brother raced a car at. The past three months back in Indianapolis therefore have been spent working on his race aerobic fitness with Saturday's two 160km races very much in mind.

"We had a test last week which went pretty well, but really the big thing this weekend is going to be fitness. It's a pretty cool natural terrain track with lots of elevation changes and a couple of places where you're really going to feel the loads in your neck and your arms and I think that's going to show a lot of the drivers up in the second race."

Double-header rounds (where there are two points scoring races over a weekend) have been a regular feature of the Firestone Indy Lights calendar since Mitch's older brother Wade started in the series in 2005.

Though this weekend's is the only one on the 2008 schedule where qualifying is held on Friday and both the races are on Saturday.

The advantage is that you get two points scoring opportunities in one weekend. But as Cunningham says if you have a problem in the first race it could also have you out of the second.

Having had to cool his heels for so long, it's pretty much all go now for the younger Cunningham brother, with two more double-header road course meetings before the end of the 2008 season.

The first is at Mid Ohio in a fortnight (over two days this time), the second at California's Infinion circuit at the end of August.