Hunter-Reay is focused on Saturday's race
By Richard Biebrich
South Florida Sun-Sentinel
March 27, 2008
FORT LAUDERDALE
Ryan Hunter-Reay is going over some of the things his racing contract states he's not allowed to take part in, such as competitive go-kart racing.
"I can ride go-karts, but no passing, no competition," he said.
There's no snowboarding, so one of his favorite things to do when he's not racing will have to take a back seat to his ride in the Ethanol-sponsored Rahal-Letterman IndyCar for now.
Pickup basketball games are OK, but ballooning?
"Out," said the 27-year old, his hands going up in the air as he shrugs. "Go figure."
As if the Cardinal Gibbons graduate would be caught in something as mercurial as ballooning, because if you know Hunter-Reay, you know how direct he is.
The focus that he'll use Saturday night in the Gainsco Auto Insurance Indy 300 at Homestead-Miami Speedway is evident in how he has progressed through his career.
Six national karting titles. A Skip Barber Karting Championship scholarship to race in Formula Dodge. The Skip Barber Formula Dodge National Championship. That put him on the fast track to the Formula Atlantic series, where he led the circuit in laps led, poles and fast times set in 2002 to earn the Worldcom Rising Star award.
He joined Champ Car the next year, where he finished third at Mid-Ohio and stole a win at Surfers Paradise, Australia. He bounced around Champ Car at that point and despite success with teams that sometimes had little business having success, Hunter-Reay found himself searching for a strong foundation, an established team.
That happened midway through 2007, when Rahal-Letterman decided to make a switch from Jeff Simmons to Hunter-Reay.
"I just jumped in the car right off. A 'get in it and go.' All considering, it was great," Hunter-Reay said. "Everything was aimed at making a decision for 2008. It was, 'OK, let's do 2007 and go from there.' I got in the car, raised the spirits on the team ... and it was a no-brainer to come back in 2008."
Go ahead and pinch him and he'll still be living his dream.
"Being with a top IndyCar team, with a huge sponsor in Ethanol, being a part of that movement, and driving for Bobby Rahal and David Letterman, one unified season, opening in South Florida, my home, it's all pretty cool," said Hunter-Reay, who then smiles and corrects himself. "It's been awesome."
Goals for 2008 are modest.
"I don't have any big numbers set," he said. "I know we've got a lot of work to do on the 1 1/2-mile ovals. We're a 12th-place car right now and we're better than that. We're better than that on the road courses. That said, I want to consistently finish in the top seven ... to be there in the end for a championship. I'd like to get a race win and a couple of podiums. And I believe we can.
"It's a lot of pressure, but I put most of that on myself. You have to kind of remind yourself that on ovals you can't carry the car like on a road course, where you can just grit your teeth and hang it out there. On an oval, you can do a little of that, but 75 percent of the results you see on an oval are the car's capability."
The kid who used to terrorize his neighborhood in Boca Raton in his go-kart has no fear in challenging IndyCar's best Saturday night at 200-plus mph, but the drive down to the track on I-95 and the Florida Turnpike?
Let's just say Rahal-Letterman could have put driving on a South Florida highway in the "no-can-do" clause and he'd have been fine with that, too.
"It's crazy down here," Hunter-Reay said.
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