IndyCar champ Ryan Hunter-Reay on top of the world

By: Lewis Franck | Autoweek

Ryan Hunter-Reay was on top of the Izod IndyCar Series and almost on top of the world on the afternoon of Sept. 19 as he posed for photographers at the Empire State Building.

Most people don’t know how arduous a climb it was from the bottom to the championship for the 31-year-old Texas-born driver.

In 2006, after three years in the in the now-defunct Champ Car World Series, the Florida resident’s career in Indy cars seemed over.

Despite proving himself as a winner in his first year at the 2003 Surfers Paradise, Australia, race and again in 2004 with a flag-to-flag win at the Milwaukee Mile, no one was interested in the then-25-year-old after the 2005 season.

“Absolutely, it was dire straits for me,” Hunter-Reay told Autoweek. “There were no solutions on the horizon. Nobody was answering the phone. There really was no path to take that could get me back where I wanted to go. I did whatever I could to keep in front of team owners.”

In 2006, he ran a part-time schedule in the Grand-Am Rolex Sports Car Series, but that’s not where he wanted to be. That year, he thought he’d give NASCAR a try. He came to the September race in Richmond, Va., along with his brother-in-law to be, former Champ Car racer and NASCAR driver Robby Gordon.

“Absolutely,” he said, when I reminded him of a conversation we had back then at a little sandwich shop near Richmond International Airport. At the time, I was shocked to see him switching series. He explained, “I had done some testing for Chevrolet in NASCAR—that’s where my relationship with them began. Now, here we are today, [and we] won the [IndyCar] championship together.”

His desire to race in IndyCar hadn’t diminished six years ago. And little did he know, at that time, a bit of self-promotion would eventually get him to the top of the world. A pitch to a former driver who is now a team owner got him back onto the top rung of U.S. open-wheel racing.

“Ultimately, it was having that conversation at beginning of ’07 with Bobby [Rahal] and Scott [Roembke, the late COO of Rahal Letterman Racing] at Long Beach,” he recalled. “I told them, ‘A: I’ll be ready to go if you need me. I’m keeping in myself in good shape. B: I’m ready to go in the Indy car whenever you need me, if you did need me.’ And, lo and behold, I got the call later that year.”

Although he only ran six races that season, with a best finish of sixth at Michigan International Speedway, it was good enough for a return engagement the following year. In 2008, Hunter-Reay produced one win (Watkins Glen) and finished the season eighth in the points. But the team did not renew his contract.

In 2009, he started out the season for Tony George’s Vision Racing, scoring a second-place finish at the season opener in St. Petersburg, Fla. He ended the season with A.J. Foyt’s team but was not renewed for 2010. He was out of a job, again.

In 2010, Hunter-Reay negotiated a drive with Michael Andretti, who already had a pretty full stable including son Marco, Tony Kanaan and Danica Patrick. It was only a race-to-race deal.

“Every race—in that position, especially—every race, you are fighting for your job,” he said. “You are showing you should be in that seat. That you deserve a season, let alone a two-year contract.”

This season? Andretti Autosport last week announced prior to the season finale that it had renewed Hunter-Reay’s contract for two more years.

“The thing that prepared me very well for [the struggle] for most of my career [is that] I had been in that position,” he said. “You’re going to get one shot, and one shot only, to land a job. That’s how most of my career prepared me for that. Being on the rough side of the career and never having continuity, never having the comfort of having a ride the next year makes you that much hungrier.”

That hunger propelled Hunter-Reay into his coveted two-year deal—and posing Wednesday with the Astor Cup on the 86th Floor Observatory of the Empire State Building.

Read more: http://www.autoweek.com/article/20120919/indycar/120919806#ixzz27jzEQ4Qr

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