Hunter-Reay, Once a Vagabond Driver, Could Win IndyCar Title Ryan Hunter-Reay was a racecar driver who needed a road map. He was not yet 25 when he lost his third ride in three years in the flagging Champ Car series in 2005, and he had to contemplate his future, perhaps without racing. "I definitely grazed the bottom, I think," he said this week. He raced sports cars and was selected to a driver-development program for Rick Hendrick's Nascar team, later becoming a test-car driver. He was merely turning laps, whiling away the time, when he got a phone call from Bobby Rahal in July 2007. Rahal, the 1986 Indianapolis 500 winner, owned an IndyCar team with David Letterman, and he had seen his driver Jeff Simmons wreck enough times to want to make a change. He also knew the driver he wanted to hire. "I would think that we had a pretty strong track record of hiring drivers who other people washed their hands of," he said. Hunter-Reay drove six races at the end of the 2007 season for Rahal, finishing in the top 10 in three, and his career took off. Hunter-Reay, 31, is now driving for the former racer Michael Andretti and is a contender for the IndyCar Series championship Saturday night in Fontana, Calif. Will Power, an Australian who drives for Roger Penske, takes a 17-point lead over Hunter-Reay into the season finale. The difference between finishing first and fourth in one race is 18 points, and Hunter-Reay has beaten longer odds. "When you've weathered the lows, it makes the highs so much better," he said. After breaking through in 2007, Hunter-Reay finished sixth in his first Indianapolis 500 in 2008 and later won his first series race, at Watkins Glen, N.Y. Rahal liked that Hunter-Reay kept his cars in one piece. But his sponsor with Rahal backed out, so Hunter-Reay took a last-minute six-race deal with the team owned by Tony George, the series founder, for the 2009 season. Then Hunter-Reay moved to A .J. Foyt's team to fill in when Vitor Meira broke two vertebrae in his back. "Ninety percent of being successful in racing is having the fortitude, commitment and drive to keep going, no matter what," Rahal said. That year Hunter-Reay's mother, Lydia, was fighting a losing battle against colon cancer. He often commuted between her hospital in Houston and the racetrack. She died that November. And because he was a substitute for Foyt, Hunter-Reay again had to look for a ride. Before the 2010 season, Andretti hired Hunter-Reay, who had sponsorship only through the Indy 500 in May. But he won at Long Beach, Calif., in April and secured enough sponsorship money to finish the season. Hunter-Reay was a team player, and versatile. "That's the thing about Ryan - he can win on any kind of racetrack," Andretti said after Hunter-Reay staged a late charge Sept. 2 to win the Grand Prix of Baltimore. Until this year, Andretti's team had included Danica Patrick, who was an IndyCar sensation before jumping to the Nascar Nationwide Series. Now Andretti Autosport features Marco Andretti, Michael's son; James Hinchcliffe; and Hunter-Reay. The three have gotten along, shared notes and created a buzz for the series that is not related to Patrick. "I think our product is the best product out there," Andretti said. We do have something to offer. It's actually in some ways has become better because the fans come to see more than Danica. Power won three of the first four races of the 15-race season, but Hunter-Reay won consecutive races at Milwaukee, Iowa and Toronto to become a title contender. But he fell 56 points behind Power after an Aug. 26 race at Sonoma, Calif. In the next race, at Baltimore, Hunter-Reay avoided contact while running on slick tires in a rain shower, then grabbed the lead on a daring (and perhaps illegal) restart to win the race. "At times, definitely, things have to fall your way," Power said this week in a conference call. There's probably a little bit of a luck involved, as there is in every race and every championship. I think a mind-set definitely helps. The 500-mile race Saturday is on a two-mile oval. Hunter-Reay has four IndyCar Series career victories on ovals, Power just one. Hunter-Reay said he would be trying to win the race, not merely outrun Power. He put himself in a position to win the championship by being brazen. Now he needs to be smart. "We took big risks, and we were rewarded for the risks," he said of the race in Baltimore. Hunter-Reay stands to win a trophy and a $1 million bonus. But his two-year contract with Andretti is expiring. There have been reports that Hunter-Reay, a driver scuffling for rides only a few years ago, has been approached by the deep-pocketed Penske. Hunter-Reay declined to confirm the reports. "What he's doing now is nothing different than what I thought he could do," Rahal said of Hunter-Reay. He's in a different situation now than he was a couple of years ago.