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ST. SIMONS ISLAND, Ga. -- Chris Kirk was at his best when the wind was at its worst Friday in the McGladrey Classic. Kirk rolled in a 40-foot birdie putt from off the green, chipped in from nearly 60 feet for birdie on another hole and wound up with another 4-under 66 at Sea Island to take a one-shot lead going into the weekend. "Definitely shot my score on that back nine," said Kirk, who started the second round on the back. "I made a pretty easy bogey on No. 10 and it was just kind of like, Yeah, this is going to be a pretty tough day. But I didnt let it bug me." He followed with five birdies to get into the lead, and stayed there with a pair of saves -- one for bogey on No. 4, another from a plugged lie in the bunker on No. 8. Kirk was at 8-under 132, one shot ahead of Kevin Chappell (68), Webb Simpson (68), John Senden (67) and Briny Baird (70). Eighteen players had to return Saturday morning to finish the round, none closer than three shot of Kirk. Even though he recently moved back to the Atlanta area, Kirk was one of the early PGA Tour pros to settle at Sea Island. This was one time where it paid off. The conditions were cold and blustery, with gusts up to 35 mph, and Kirk was ready for just about anything. "Ive played this course hundreds of times," he said. "Ive seen every wind direction, every wind strength. Ive seen it blow way harder than that before. You still know how well youve got to play to shoot a good score, but at least theres no surprises." He missed his 3-wood ever so slightly into the wind at the start of his round and had to hit hybrid for his second shot. Its normally a 3-wood and a wedge. "I guess that is a little bit of an advantage, just not being shocked by it all," he said. Chappell had a few surprises, good and bad. He reached the par-5 15th hole in two and felt a gust helped blow his eagle putt into the hole. That was good. But on the par-3 third, aiming at a small tent well right of the green to cope with a strong right-to-left wind, he came up so short of the green that his ball disappeared into a hazard that Chappell didnt even know existed. That led to a double bogey. "You hit some not-so-perfect shots and get some bad breaks with the wind gusting and you get exposed really quickly," Chappell said. "I think I was fortunate to come to that realization that theres some luck involved today and that maybe for a period of time I was one of the luckier guys out here. But that tough stretch in the middle of the round I wasnt so lucky, and the law of averages, it averaged out." The law of averages was reflected in the scoring. George McNeill finished off the fog-delayed first round Friday morning with an 8-under 62, when the course was soft and benign. It only made sense to Kirk that the lead going into the weekend was 8 under. Simpson, who lost in a playoff at Sea Island in 2011, had a flawless round spoiled with a bogey from the bunker on the 17th hole. Even so, he was poised to go after his second win since this wraparound season began a month ago. Simpson already has won in Las Vegas. The group at 6-under 134 included Jason Kokrak, who had the low score of the second round at 65. That included a birdie on the par-4 fifth hole, which wraps around a marsh. With the wind helping, the big-hitting Kokrak took a short cut toward the green and came up just short, setting up a chip-and-putt for birdie. That was two shots worse than how he played the hole in a pro-am round. With a similar wind, he smashed his driver over the marsh, onto the green and into the hole for an albatross ace. Too bad it was only practice. "I think it will play into my favour to play a little bit windy," Kokrak said. "Maybe not quite as gusty and windy as it is today for the putting aspect, but 15 to 20 mph wind would be fine with me. I think its an easier golf course for me to climb closer to the leaders with a little bit of wind as opposed to shooting 7-, 8-under par like the first round." McNeill struggled in the wind, making five straight bogeys on his way to a 76. He was six shots behind. Kirk moved to Sea Island in 2007, among the early settlers of PGA Tour players, and he still keeps a place here. Its not a big problem being a local and having to deal with ticket requests. "Im probably the seventh- or eighth-best player on the island," he said with a laugh. But he has been the best over two days, thanks to mixture of solid shots and long birdies. Perhaps his best shot of the day came at the par-5 15th, when Kirk had a tree blocking his second shot to the green. He had to play a hook around the green, not easy considering the wind was hard from left-to right. "I had to effectively hit a 30-, 35-yard hook just to get it around the tee and fight the wind," Kirk said. He would have taken the left bunker, but instead hit the shot into about 10 feet and two-putted for birdie. DIVOTS: Tournament host Davis Love III, who shared the 54-hole lead a year ago at Sea Island, went 75-74 and missed the cut. ... Will MacKenzie was 7 under in his first 13 holes and 11 over on his next 13 holes. He went 66-79 to miss the cut. ... Matt Kuchar opened with rounds of 68-68 and was four shots behind. Wholesale Air Force One . They signed their first kicker. Ottawa inked Nick Setta, a 32-year-old native of Lockport, Illinois, to a contract. Nike Air Force 1 Australia Cheap .com) - Thursday marks the official debut of a new dirt racing surface at Meydan Racecourse. http://www.cheapnikeairforce1australia.com/ . Balotelli was out at dinner with his brother Enoch and came home to discover he had been burgled. The car was later found abandoned. Balotelli wrote Saturday on Twitter: "I feel empty! No emotions . Nike Air Force 1 Cheap Outlet . Armstrong was given the rank of "Chevalier" -- or Knight -- in the "Legion dHonneur" in 2005, the last year of his seven consecutive Tour de France victories. Nike Air Force 1 Clearance . LOUIS -- Alexander Steen scored a power-play goal with 59.Twenty-four-year-old Jacques Villeneuve drives out of the iconic Indianapolis Motor Speedway with the world at his feet. It is the Monday after the day before, a day that forever changed the life of the young Canadian. That day Villeneuve, fittingly driving the number 27 that become so synonymous with his father Gilles at Ferrari, comes from two laps down to win the 1995 Indianapolis 500. He had spent the day smiling and posing for hundreds of photographs that are beamed all across the world. By the end of the year he has a multi-year contract in his pocket at the best team in Formula One, Williams-Renault. Within two years Villeneuve is World Champion and is a star everywhere he goes. Meanwhile, the Indianapolis 500 continues on without him. As Villeneuve departed for Europe, IndyCar split in two and has never fully recovered from the bitter divorce. The Indy 500s list of drivers in the late 90s lacked real star power and it lost a grip on being the biggest race in the world. Slowly the giant teams like Penske, Ganassi and Andretti returned and with them came world class, elite drivers. For some ten years now, the Indy 500 is back to what it once was, testing some of the greatest single-seater drivers the world has to offer. It is the second Sunday in May and Jacques Villeneuve, now 43, drives back inside the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Dressed in a yellow race suit with Dollar General written all over it he looks nothing like what many would expect a former F1 World Champion to look. He doesnt have the amount of hair he once had but he is back at Indy as a driver, the first time in 19 years. He stops to sign autographs and pose for photographs as he makes that famous walk, paved by greatness, that the likes of A.J. Foyt, Jim Clark, Rick Mears and other stars have taken, alongside Gasoline Alley to the pit lane. The diehard fans stare and flock towards him but he is far from the main attraction at the Speedway. Villeneuve, not a regular on the IndyCar circuit, does remarkably well with attention but here he is just another driver, one that doesnt travel in packs with fellow drivers. He is a man from past glories back to recreate new memories of his own. "I hardly know anyone to be honest. I know (Takuma) Sato, but I never raced against him and I have never raced against anyone who is a regular in this series. That is weird because I dont know what to expect, I dont know how they race. Which one is clean? Dirty? Crazy? So its definitely a bit strange, yes." The answer is typical Jacques. He talks of not knowing anyone but immediately he means as drivers, not as men. Our conversation immediately turns to scenarios that can take place on the track. Villeneuve doesnt talk in clichés and for someone who has done as much media as he has in his life, he remains a refreshingly deep-thinker who can take you on the same journey as his mind. We talk about this upcoming Sunday and the Indy 500, and the point when he will be travelling in excess of 230 miles per hour with cars all around him. His eyes squint as he dictates word-for-word his precise thoughts as he gets set to compete in what he describes as the biggest race in the world. "The complexity of this race now is running in traffic. The cars have two hundred horsepower less than 19 years ago and much more grip and to be able to stay super close to the cars, while everyone is running flat out, the key is to stay close to someone else, (ready for) when he has to lift, back out a little bit because of the traffic in front of him, then you steal his momentum. "Thats really tough, ass you get in the turbulent air behind someone, your whole car is shaking and thats when the car starts sliding and you can lose the front end or the rear end a little bit and, at that point, do you have the guts to keep your foot down or not and is your car working in that situation?" This is a world he has little control in, a frightening thought for even the greatest of race drivers.dddddddddddd Villeneuve, who will start, fittingly, in the 27th spot for Sundays race, continues: "I will be surrounded by guys who respect the danger and others who think its a video game and, at those speeds, its risky and thats what I still dont know, who to trust and who not to trust out there. With more grip and less horsepower, the cars are very forgiving. I have got sideways a few times already this month and if I did that 19 years ago I would have been in the wall. "I think they give a false sense of security for some of the drivers and thats why you see kids coming in and, within three laps, they are flat out because I dont think they respect how dangerous it is. Once you get caught out, then you start respecting it and at Indianapolis there are two kinds of drivers, the ones who have hit the wall and the ones who havent hit the wall." It is clear Villeneuve is almost as concerned about those who havent hit the wall than hitting the wall himself. "This is not a track where you want to make a mistake. The speeds we go is exciting, it is unparalleled. It is a long race and my approach (in the past) was to mind your own business and it will come to you. You have to know when to take a risk and when not to. Normally in the first half, the idiots will crash themselves out so if you can stay clean to 100 laps then that can be useful!" There arent too many drivers in IndyCar who will refer to some of the colleagues as idiots but this is what comes with the honest, direct Villeneuve who survived the world of Formula One without turning into a robot, something very few have done in recent years. He admits he still watches Formula One but not the same way he once did: "I dont like or understand the reason behind the new rules but we have had some amazing races this year. Why? Only because the teammates have been allowed to fight. When you had Prost and Senna (at McLaren in the late 80s) they would lap the field but everyone was happy so we have a bit of that now with Lewis (Hamilton) and Nico (Rosberg). "The rules themselves, though, are not F1. The sport should be out of this world, not reality. You should look at it and say thats crazy how do these guys manage to drive these kinds of cars at those speeds. In the original turbo engine era they would do qualifying and then throw the engine in the garbage. Thats F1. It should be so extreme that when you are at home, and you are not a racer, you know thats another world. Now you are at home and think I could do that. There is nothing special about it anymore." The man who won 11 Grand Prix races has never been one to focus too much on the past but it is clear he knows those eras were far superior to modern day F1. He smiles when asked about the 1997 season but moves off from it as quickly as it comes up. "It was fun but I dont dwell on the past, I never have and thats why I want my kids to see me drive. I dont want to be for my kids, the guy that used to race that they can see in books." Those books tell a remarkable tale of one of the finest Canadians to ever compete in any sport. On Sunday at the Greatest Spectacle in Racing another chapter is to be written. ' ' '