It was a case of varying fortunes for Kent’s Mike Conway in the Chevrolet Indy “Dual in Detroit” doubleheader after a tough Saturday race.

In race one Conway looked to be progressing well before contact with the wall ended his hopes of taking victory in the Saturday race for the second year in a row.

He was chasing down James Hinchcliffe in third place and was looking odds on to catch him, especially as he was running the harder compound black tyres. Then he clipped the wall at turn twelve and that was it for the Sevenoaks race ace, he was to place 21^st having qualified fourth on the grid.

Speaking after the race a disappointed, Conway said: “It is a tough deal,” said Conway in the ECR paddock area. “I was saving fuel like we wanted early in the race. I was on the black tires and the three in front of me were on reds. I wanted to pressure them into a mistake.

“I could see James was sliding and caught it a couple of times. I felt I could pressure him into a mistake. I got into turn 12 a little late and the car couldn’t turn. I clipped the outside wall pretty hard. The boys worked hard to fix and get us back out. We wanted to check out the car before Sunday’s qualifying. I feel bad for the Fuzzys team.”

On Sunday morning Conway again showed that he was on the pace as he qualified for the feature race later on Sunday in fourth place. In the race Conway once again looked like he had the pace to be a contender for the victory.

A couple of full course cautions kept the field bunched up together and that kept Conway in touch with the leaders, and on the longer lasting black wall tyres he managed to start picking his way through the field.

On lap 21 he over took Hinchcliffe and took the lead before stretching his lead ahead of his first top of the afternoon. When he came in he had to take the red wall tyres and that was to be a little bit of his undoing as he lost places once they started to go off and had to pit a bit ahead of schedule.

He rejoined the track in 17^th place and managed to pick his way back through the field and up into 11^th place during the final ten laps.

Reflecting on race two, Conway said: “Starting on the black tyres was a good move today, I was able to get past several guys early. But, to be honest, Hinch (James Hinchcliffe) had power off the corners even with the red tyres. And it took me some time to finally get under him in turn 3. I didn’t want to use up all of my ‘overtakes’ too early in the race. That amount of time trying to get by him cost us at the end of the race.

“The red tyres were pretty good for me. They went off a little but I was pushing hard. The right front tyre was locking up and it was getting worse. So I decided to pit early for the fresh black yires or I was going to crash.

“It is tough to pass here and I made some good ones today. At the end, I was pushing every lap like a qualifying lap. And it was fun and we learned some more for the team. I was happy how the car was hooked up. We just didn’t get the yellows to fall our way today. It was fun to push the car as hard as I did. I just wish for a better result today. Now, it’s on to Houston for me next.”