Hunter-Reay’s Plentiful Issues Curb Iowa Effort

By Christopher DeHarde, Staff Writer

NEWTON, Iowa — Ryan Hunter-Reay’s issues started early during Sunday’s Iowa Corn 300.

The 2012 Verizon IndyCar Series champion had no radio to his pits so while the pit crew could communicate to Hunter-Reay, the reverse was not possible.

Later on, Hunter-Reay had a major vibration on a particular set of tires which caused his last major issue of the day.

“It was a high frequency vibration though the car and shortly after that I lost all the camber shims in the left rear,” said Hunter-Reay. “I couldn’t tell the team that so when I came in here they just sent me back out again and I went out and drove almost half a stint or more with no camber shims in the left rear.

“Any time weight would go to the front of the car, the car would overreact and then when I’d go back to it, it would then overreact again. It was a nightmare out there. I’m just happy it’s not in the wall.”

Hunter-Reay ran third in the early portion of the race and stayed in the top ten for the vast majority of the race until the vibration morphed into a larger problem.

The 2014 Indianapolis 500 winner would finish 19th on a day that had other major championship drivers have issues. Points leader Scott Dixon would finish 12th while Alexander Rossi finished tenth but Hunter-Reay was dismissive about how that mitigated how disastrous his race was.

“You’ve got to capitalize when they have a bad day, you’ve got to be up front,” said Hunter-Reay. “I mean, there’s no reason for these mechanical issues like this. We just need to not have the issues and we’ll try to figure out what happens. But right now the big culprit is that vibration.”

Hunter-Reay will be looking to improve at the Honda Indy Toronto on July 15th. With a win on the streets at Exhibition Place in 2012 and podium finishes there in 2010 and 2011, the Andretti Autosport driver will look to improve in the points after dropping from a tie in second to fourth.