1,000 Greatest Drivers: Ryan Hunter-Reay

Definitely overreayted, but still had a respectable career.

Just as with Colin Bond, I elected to do RHR today just because of the pun. I admit I might be too harsh here, but I also admit that everything about his career has always rubbed me the wrong way. It’s weird that RHR was the driver chosen for his initial Champ Car ride even though three other American drivers beat him in the 2002 Atlantic Championship: Jon Fogarty, Alex Gurney, and Rocky Moran, Jr. At least Fogarty and Gurney got some sports car titles afterward. Next, his inexplicable random mid-season comeback in 2007 when it looked like his career was left for dead (I thought even at the time that Bobby Rahal only hired him in an eventually successful attempt to make sure that Milka Duno didn’t become Rookie of the Year…) Then managing to extend his career just because a fly-by-night title sponsor randomly decided to make him their poster boy. Then being seen as briefly the savior of IndyCar because he came to prominence immediately after Americans went winless for the first time in IndyCar history in 2009. That was enough to get him called “Captain America” just because he was better than Marco Andretti, Danica Patrick, and Graham Rahal, who did not exactly provide him much competition. I’m not even sure he was better than Rahal (who is higher in my model). Then missing the Indy 500 and buying out Bruno Junqueira’s previously-qualified entry, a move I always hate. Then his win at Loudon, where Oriol Servià passed him for the lead and had a pass nullified just because Will Power threw a double bird and embarrassed the officials.

You know how Santino Ferrucci’s megahype annoys people right now? I kind of felt the same way about the RHR hype at the time (and Ferrucci is another driver who is actually ahead of RHR in my model right now). Obviously, he’s nowhere near as loathsome of a person as Ferrucci, but it was pretty hard for me to write this objectively when I feel his career had so much baggage and he primarily benefited from American media xenophobia at a time when the level of American IndyCar talent was at its all-time lowest. Now that more naturally talented American drivers like Josef Newgarden, Colton Herta, Alexander Rossi (okay, we can debate this one), and Kyle Kirkwood have emerged since, what was the big deal?