DANA POINT, Calif. (July 26, 2007) — An extraordinary four days. Day one; Hunter-Reay agrees to a contract with Bobby Rahal to take over the driving duties of the Rahal Letterman Racing Team Ethanol entry in the Indy Racing League, starting the following day at Mid-Ohio for the race weekend. Day two; In a very early morning application of team work the Team Ethanol crew completes Ryan’s final fitting in the 1500 pound, 670 horsepower, Dallara IndyCar before sending him on track in the weekends first official practice session. Day three; Qualifies the Rahal Letterman Team Ethanol No.#17 car tenth. Day four; Starts his first IRL race in tenth, picks up one position by the first corner and another three avoiding the contact between Andretti, Patrick and Kanaan. Ran a flawless race in sixth until his first pit stop emerging in tenth then worked his way back to ninth before his next stop. By this point the teams’ confidence in Ryan was such that they elected to double stint his Firestone Firehawks and called him in for a ‘fuel only’ pit stop gaining one position to eight and then Hunter-Reay ran down Thomas Scheckter to take the seventh spot.
RHR recorded the best road course qualifying and race result for the Rahal Letterman Racing Team Ethanol entry since they switched to the Dallara chassis in 2006.
Adding to the accomplishment is the fact that Hunter-Reay had never tested or so much as turned a wheel in an IndyCar, whereas all of the other drivers had completed an extensive two day test at that track with their teams only a few weeks before. Despite it being his first time in the car, at one of the most technical road courses in America, over three days Ryan never made an error or so much as dropped a wheel with the exception of two off’s when the throttle linkage got hung up on some last minute modifications to accommodate his size 11 feet, 6’ 1” frame and 175 pound weight, making him the tallest and heaviest driver in the Indy Racing League Series.
Rahal Letterman Chief Operating Officer stated; ‘…Everybody realized that neither of the incidents we had this weekend were Ryan’s fault…’ , ‘…We are very pleased with the way things went…’ and ‘…We found a lot to build on…’ (complete Rahal Letterman Racing Team quotes below).
Ryan had the following to say about his whirlwind introduction to a new car, team, and series. Day one; “I am very happy to be joining a quality organization such as Rahal Letterman Racing. This is a strong opportunity for me and I am eager to help the team move forward and get some results through the remainder of the season’. Day two; ‘It was a good first day for the Team Ethanol car. Having never driven an IndyCar until today and being just a couple of tenths out of the top ten is pretty decent’. Day three; ‘We’re doing a great job for our first weekend together. The Ethanol car is very strong, the team has worked extremely hard and things are progressing well for us’.
Day four; ‘“We ran a great race today. The first time out in these cars with no testing and to finish in the top seven feels like a win for the team,” said Hunter-Reay. "If you consider the fact that we were still shaping the seat Friday morning right before first practice, this is a huge result, not to mention every other driver and team had a complete two day test here prior to this race weekend to get prepared for this place. We had a couple of fluky things happen in practice with two separate stuck throttle situations, but the whole Ethanol Team showed amazing tenacity, we really kept after it. In the race we didn't do any tricky strategy, we simply had good pace and ran well. It was a satisfying day for us. This was the highest road course finish for the team since they switched to the Dallara chassis in 2006 and we now have a solid platform to build on for Sonoma in a few weeks"
"We're now preparing to switch gears and head to Michigan where we'll be running at 220mph for several hours straight. The team has been making progress on the ovals, so I really look forward to getting behind the wheel of the Ethanol car again next weekend".
Following are the Rahal Letterman Racing Team Ethanol Official Press Releases as they relate to RHR over the four days in reverse order.
Ryan Hunter-Reay Debuts in Seventh Place to Lead RLR Efforts at Mid-Ohio
LEXINGTON, Ohio (July 22, 2007) - Just four short hours before the IndyCar debut of Ryan Hunter-Reay (#17 Ethanol Dallara/Honda/Firestone), things got interesting.
A fluke occurrence left Hunter-Reay with his second incidence of a stuck throttle during the weekend, sending him off course and into the tire barrier, forcing the Rahal Letterman Racing Ethanol team to turn a calm pre-race into a fire drill. But the team answered the bell with plenty of time to spare, and Hunter-Reay did the rest, running a strong race to lead the squad with a seventh-place finish in front of a sellout crowd at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course.
Hunter-Reay made up four spots in a first-lap melee involving a trio of Andretti-Green cars and ran in the top group for the rest of today’s 85-lap Honda Indy 200, scoring a seventh-place finish to bank 26 points in the Rookie-of-the-Year battle with five races yet to run.
“It felt great. The first time out in these cars with no testing and to finish in the top seven feels like a win for me,” said Hunter-Reay. “We had a couple of fluky things happen in practice and the Ethanol team showed amazing tenacity, we kept after it, we didn't do anything cute, we had good pace and ran well. It was a satisfying day for us."
Hunter-Reay ran sixth through the first fuel stint, but fell to ninth after the first stop. He dropped back to 10th briefly in the middle portion of the race, but worked his way back up to ninth for his second stop. He was slated to make his final stop with 18 laps of the 2.258-mile road course when the team decided to come in for fuel only, stretching the life of the Firestone Firehawks over the entire last half of the race. Hunter-Reay stepped up and ran his fastest lap of the race on his in-lap, the team snapped off a strong pit stop to move him up to eighth and then Hunter-Reay ran down Tomas Scheckter to take the seventh spot.
“We are very pleased with the way things went today, we found a lot to build on and with some more testing I think we’ll show even more,” said RLR Chief Operating Officer Scott Roembke. “The guys from both crews worked well together and got Ryan’s car ready to go after this morning’s incident. Everybody realized that neither of the incidents we had this weekend were Ryan’s fault, they diagnosed the problem and did a strong job in not only getting the car ready, but making it fast. Now we can take some time this week, catch up on some things and get some testing in before the next race.”
The result was especially satisfying as it came in front of most of the members of the Ohio-based team, who came up to Lexington with their families to take the opportunity to see the RLR squad in action first-hand. Nearly everyone on the team came out to the track over the three-day weekend as the team’s hospitality coach hosted more than 300 people for the event.
Today’s event marked the end of an IndyCar-record five-week stretch of races, and the Rahal Letterman Racing team will have the weekend off before heading to Michigan International Speedway Sunday, August 5.
Ryan Hunter-Reay Scores Top-10 Qualifying Result to Lead RLR at Mid-Ohio
LEXINGTON, Ohio (July 21, 2007) —Making your first-ever IndyCar Series start with no testing and about 72 hours of notice before strapping into a 675-horsepower Indy Car on one of the most technical road courses in the country?
No problem for Rahal Letterman Racing’s newest driver as Ryan Hunter-Reay (#17 Ethanol Dallara/Honda/Firestone) jumped into the car this weekend without a second of testing and posted the team’s best road-course qualifying result of the season on a Chamber of Commerce weather day at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course.
Hunter-Reay snapped off a quick lap of 1:08.8743 (118.024 mph) around the 2.258-mile road course to qualify 10th for this weekend’s Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio Presented by Westfield Insurance. The Floridian broke into the 68-second range in Saturday morning’s practice, then posted his best lap of the weekend when it counted the most, thrilling a large crowd that poured into the 45-year-old facility.
"We're doing a great job for our first weekend out here together," Hunter-Reay said. "The Ethanol car is very strong, the team has worked extremely hard and things are progressing well for us. We're jumping in the deep end with no testing but I've learned a lot from Scott (Sharp) and the engineers, and I've run here a lot so all that put together has really helped us".
The Honda Indy 200 will take place tomorrow afternoon with the 85-lap event slated to begin at 1:30 Eastern Time. Fans can follow all of the action live on ABC.
Ryan Hunter-Reay Leads RLR Efforts in Opening Practice Day at Mid-Ohio
LEXINGTON, Ohio (July 20, 2007) - Rahal Letterman Racing’s newest IndyCar Series driver took his very first laps in an Indy Car at 7:40 a.m. this morning but it didn’t take Ryan Hunter-Reay (#17 Ethanol Dallara/Honda/Firestone) long to figure out that the basic principles of open-wheel racing haven’t changed in the last two years.
Sit down, strap in, go fast.
Hunter-Reay did just that in his first-ever IndyCar Series practice session, leading the RLR efforts in the first of a three-day race weekend at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course. The Floridian turned a best lap of 1:09.3506 (117.213 mph) in the final practice of Friday’s opening day, and was even quicker than that with a best lap of 1:09.2600 (117.366 mph) in the morning outing.
“It was a good first day for the Ethanol car. Having never driven an Indy Car until today and being just a couple tenths out of the top 10 is pretty decent,” Hunter-Reay said. “We have a lot of info from today that we need to go over tonight, we’ll make some changes and see what we can come up with for tomorrow’s qualifying.”
Veteran Scott Sharp (#8 Patrón Dallara/Honda/Firestone) was just behind his new stablemate on the final charts as the RLR duo scored the 13th and 14th spots on today’s speed sheets.
Sharp and the Patrón Rahal Letterman Racing squad made gains from the IndyCar Open Test that the team participated in last month, and are continuing to build toward a spot in the top 10 for Saturday’s qualifying. Sharp continued to progress in today’s 30-minute afternoon session, logging faster times in the final session than he did in the 90-minute morning practice.
“In my case, we’re quicker now than we were at the test and that is due to some of the things that we learned then,” Sharp said after posting a best time of 1:09.5259 (116.918 mph). “But we also made some gains in Watkins Glen that we are using to our advantage here. So we are getting quicker, but the downside is that everyone else is getting faster as well. Right now we are trying to find a way to calm the car down. There’s a lot of movement in it that we need to get settled. If we can do that, we have a chance to be successful.”
The IndyCar pilots will have an early day tomorrow, with one 30-minute session leading into single-car qualifying, which takes place before noon due to the American Le Mans Series support event that runs tomorrow afternoon. The single-car session will begin at 11:50 a.m. Eastern Time, with the top-six cars then entering into the Firestone Fast Six, which sets the starting order for Sunday’s race. The morning practice gets underway at 9:00 a.m.
