Ed Carpenter Racing has enlisted Captain America To Help Turn Its Season Around
Photo by Lisa Hurley, Penske Entertainment
Out of an IndyCar cockpit on a regular basis for a year and a half, Ryan Hunter-Reay, tagged as Captain America by broadcaster Leigh Diffey, returns to the NTT INDYCAR SERIES this weekend at Elkhart Lake’s Road America. Hunter-Reay was named by Ed Carpenter Racing as the new driver of the No. 20 bitnile.com Chevrolet, replacing Conor Daly, who parted with the team by mutual agreement last week.
While he’s looking forward to Sunday’s Sonsio Grand Prix presented by AMR at Road America, Hunter-Reay knows it won’t be easy coming into a new team mid-season.
“Yeah, I'm looking forward to it. Obviously this is a tough situation. A lot has happened in a short amount of time. There's just a whole lot to take in. It's so multifaceted. There's so many variables here at play.
“Bottom line is tough situation, especially mid-season. I feel for Conor. I've been on either end of that deal, and in some cases numerous times. Big fan of his, and hopefully he'll be back in the INDYCAR Series soon where he belongs no doubt.
“We're just plugging away hour by hour here, day by day, and looking forward to the weekend ahead.”
Frustrated that his team hasn’t been able to reach its potential despite the investments that have been made in the last couple of years, Carpenter asked his friend Hunter-Reay for help in turning the team around.
“Right now honestly it’s race by race. We’ll see where it goes. Ed is a good friend of mine.”
“Right now honestly it's race by race. We'll see where it goes. Ed is a good friend of mine.
“He called me. I was surprised when it happened. He called me and said, I need your help. Would you be willing to do this? This is the situation that we're in.
“I had driven for Vision, right, in '09. Ed was my teammate. I had tested with the team in 2013. I tested with the team in 2021.
“So this is over a decade-long relationship and friendship that kind of got us to where we are at this point, and it's a unique scenario. You know, subbing out a driver in the middle of the season is a tough one for the team, for the driver.
“Like I said, I'm a big fan of Conor. I've been on either side of this with the Rocketsports situation, then with the Rahal situation in 2007 coming in, so I have an immense amount of respect for either side of it.
“This is a unique scenario where myself, coming in at this point, it gives potentially the team and myself an opportunity to come at it from a fresh perspective, looking at things a little bit differently than how they have been for the last two or three years straight.
“Rinus VeeKay and Conor are great drivers, but sometimes a team, especially in a series as competitive as INDYCAR, you just need to mix things up a little bit, look at things in new ways, and it's just the way the business rolls.
“I'm not really sure where it's going yet, and I'm not really looking that far ahead right now. I am totally focused on getting to Road America, doing the best job I can for that group of people at Ed Carpenter Racing who I have a great relationship with, and that's really where it is.
“We'll see where it goes. And yeah, it's a lot of pressure on me, honestly, but at the same time, when I look at this pragmatically, I look at it from a realist point of view. There's not silver bullet here. This is a matter of us looking at how we can approach things differently. How do you approach a qualifying session differently, a race weekend differently?
“How can we tweak some things? Maybe some of the things I used to do in the past weren't right. Maybe some of the things they're doing now aren't right. Maybe we could come together and maybe take a path that way.”
Photo by Lisa Hurley, Penske Entertainment
Recognized as one of the most successful American open wheel racing drivers, Hunter-Reay brings a wealth of experience to Ed Carpenter Racing with an INDYCAR career that spans two decades, an Indianapolis 500 win and a series title.
With no testing and limited track time before Sunday’s race, Hunter-Reay knows every lap of every session will be crucial for getting up to speed.
“Oh, absolutely crucial. Pre-COVID we had two practice sessions on Friday. Could certainly use that added session right now, but it's just a lot. It's going to be a huge undertaking.
“I've been out of the car turning right for probably a year and a half. Obviously I've stayed current in prototypes, Cadillac, CGR, Chip Ganassi Cadillac last year, obviously just came out of the Indy 500.
“But it's new all around. Even the small things I knew about Road America since I was 17 years old in a two-liter car, the little nuances are all gone. I've got new track surface, new team, new car, new group of people to work with.
“So there's just a lot going. Like I said, I'm looking forward to the challenge, but I'm also a realist. I'm approaching this from a pretty disciplined standpoint in curbing some expectations there and just taking this, like you said, how is that first session? I'm taking it lap by lap, outing by outing, and at the moment we're going day by day just trying to prepare for this thing.
“There's a lot to digest and a lot to consider.”
“I’m looking forward to the challenge, but I’m also a realist.”
As if Hunter-Reay didn’t have enough to adapt to this weekend at Road America with a new car and a new team, you can add in a new track surface he’ll need to come to grips with.
“I mean, yeah, not ideal timing, right? To throw another variable into the experiment is not obviously what you want to do.
“But some teams went there and tested. They went quicker than they have in the past, so it shows that the track surface is gripping up. I'm not sure what it'll do for the racing.
“I enjoy the Road America, Mid-Ohio, kind of old-school kind of throwback road course, big undulations sometimes in the pavement, exit curbings that drop off, just stuff like that where it's pretty old school where it's the complete opposite of what you'd see in Formula 1 and things like that.
“Yeah, unfortunately at some point they had to do it, I guess, at Road America. There were some areas that just needed the attention and decided to go the whole way. Hopefully it'll be good for the racing. I have no idea, though. I couldn't comment to that because we didn't test there.”
Hunter-Reay has a good understanding of what he’s up against this weekend, adjusting to a new team and new people in a short period of time. It’s something both he and Graham Rahal experienced first hand last month at Indy.
“Yeah, it's very similar to what I went through with Dreyer & Reinbold. We had a longer time to prepare for it, but all the same things that -- you would think it would just be as easy as drop my seat in the car and let me grab my helmet and we change a fire suit.
“It's a lot of different stuff. All the settings on the dash, on the wheel, the hand grips, where the knobs are. I've had muscle memory and so does Graham, being with the same team for so long.
“You don't even have to think about where this dial is, or when you're in the heat of the moment coming in at 220 miles an hour where the pit lane speed limit button is. All these things that are crucial to having a successful race. You have to then go and relearn or maybe have the team move around a little bit, and even then, it's still not the same as what you're -- you always feel like you're adapting in the car.
“For the first day in the No. 23 car at Indy I was having to look down and place my thumb where the radio is, just to talk, like look down off the track to do it; whereas in the past I've had -- it's just all been -- I wouldn't have to look at any of it. I knew where everything was. There's things like that.
“Then when you're working with new people and you're always trying to understand, that’s what's critical, too. It's like a coach and a quarterback. You're always trying to get that communication down and trying to understand what each needs to move forward.
“Graham, he just jumped in for the race so he wasn't really prepping the car. He did have Carb Day and there was that element of it. He had to adjust it.
“Yeah, there's a lot of similarities there, and you just have to take it with an open mindset and an optimistic approach and just get after doing what you know how to do I think is the big thing.”
Photo by Chris Owens, Penske Entertainment
Hunter-Reay understands why he’s been brought in by Carpenter. As far as his friendship with Carpenter is concerned, he doesn’t believe it will affect his ability to get the results the team is looking for. In fact, he thinks it can only help.
“Well, I mean, we're not talking about -- right now we're not talking about results. This is not a silver bullet. This is not a situation where they have brought me in to, okay, let's put another driver in the car and you driver, the new driver, you go out and go faster than the old driver. That's not what's happening here.
“This is a scenario where we are going to approach this from a technically disciplined approach, and it's going to be methodical, it's going to be a process. It's not going to be short. We're going to have to work through it every day.
“It's kind of a different situation for me, as well in some ways. It's a new scenario with a new team that works differently than other teams I've been with. I haven't actually gone racing with Ed Carpenter Racing, even though I've raced with Vision back in 2009, which is, as you know, over a decade ago.
“Yeah, it's not, hey, get in there, go get the result now, go do better than last weekend. That is the one, I think, misconception that people have. That's not what's going on here. This is something that is a much bigger picture approach. That's where we're at.
“And yeah, I think that friendship can only help. Ed is a racer. He wants it blunt. He wants to understand what I think every day, at the end of every day, at the end of every session, he wants to understand what my feelings are. I'm eager to see how the team goes through a race weekend. There's certainly plenty of very, very accomplished people there.
“All the talent and all the capability is there. It's just little tiny things can kind of tip you off your access here in an INDYCAR. I've experienced either side of that.”
As far as what he hopes to take away from this weekend at Road America, Hunter-Reay would like it to be a first step in a positive direction.
“We're looking to take away a good understanding of what the team wants and needs and what I want and need out of this partnership, and kind of trying to get a better understanding of some of the nuances and how I operate, how they operate, and then how we can go and talk about it during the break between Road America and Mid-Ohio and implement potential changes moving forward that I may need.
“Like anybody's driving style, one driver is going to ask for and want different things from their race team and race car than another driver. That's just how it is.
“I think that would be the big thing.
“This weekend is almost a test session for us. It's a getting-to-know-you session for us. As long as I go about it that way, and the team does, as well, I think that we'll put our best foot forward for Mid-Ohio.”
Hunter-Reay doesn’t consider himself a superhero, but Ed Carpenter Racing is hoping Captain America is coming to the rescue.