Ryan Hunter-Reay, Future Star, Or...

[GP Racer]

Anybody have any thoughts on Hunter-Reay's performance this year? I haven't heard anybody talking him up, or down for that matter, all season.

Personally I was really hoping for good things out of him, and while I'm really not disappointed, I can't say he's lighting up the track either. He seems to be in the same place today, that he was at the beginning of the season, right smack in the middle of the pack. He hasn't done anything spectacular, but on the flip side, he hasn't made any big mistakes.

So is he mediocre, or is he a future star? Is he quick enough, or is his Reynard holding him back? Or is it just to early to tell? Any thoughts?:confused:

[corkholio]

He made the jump too quickly from Atlantics to Champ Cars. Yeah he won races last year but he had the best car and his racecraft still needed work. Being on a new team on a shoestring budget doesn't help either. He probably could become a decent driver but I doubt he will be a star, assuming he can find a ride after daddy's money runs dry.

Then again, Hunter-Reay is one of them super mean evil ugly Americans, so he can't possibly have the talent to compete with ride-buyin' Latin boyband studs.

[Jordi]

Man, "super mean evil ugly" can make you laugh once, but not 10000 times.

Ryan.. hasn't impressed yet. Manning has seemed to do more in the Reynard, but Ryan is in a new team.

[Snrub]

In the past we didn't expect rookies to succeed the second they got in the car. Today we have guys who've succeeded very easily with little experience. Just because they have succeeded, it doesn't mean that others don't need more time to learn. I don't have a positive or negative opinion of Hunter-Raey. He's done fine for a rookie, but has no dramatic successes either.

[Omega99]

To be fair, Manning nis 28 and Hunter-Reay is 22. Age does make a difference, and more importantly, racing experience makes a difference. Although Manning is officially a rookie, the maturity that he shows on and off the track make him a stronger driver. Hunter-Reay has a sack full of potential... He's done somewhat decent on a first year team with sponsorship "issues", and an obviously inferior chasis. He's won in Atlantics. Not bad. I think he'll be very good, but not just yet.

Back to Manning for a second, I think out of all of the rookies he's put in the most solid performance. Yes, Bourdais has been fast and won races, but we knew he would be, and he had to after having so much success in F3000. Overall, Manning has been more consitent and shows signs of steady improvement, and I think he's made fewer driving errors. Once again, experience behind the wheel plays a role here. As for the other rookies, Haberfeld has had both flashes of brilliance and idiocy, sometimes in the same race. Same deal for Monteiro, but less impressive. And as for Lavin and the Coyne drivers... I won't even go there.

Bourdais is great and will be off to F1 before too long, but it's guys like Manning and Hunter-Reay where you can safely say that the best is yet to come.

[f1manoz]

I concur with the thought that perhaps RHR moved up a year or two too early but he was given the opportunity and of course he'll grasp it.

I think he'll come good if he continues to develop.

[Lee Janotta]

Ryan... Should be doing more. But he's keeping pace with teammate Vasser... Who should have been pitched out of the series.

Uhm... I'll give him next season, hopefully with a better team, before I make a decision. ASTJ is arguably an even worse team than Dale Coyne or PK.

[Snrub]

Very good points. Sometimes the learning process can be accelerated by being put in more challanging situations. Having Vasser as a mentor will facilitate the learning.

CART has picked up and made stars out of a lot of "forgotton" drivers. Manning looks to be one of them.

An example of the different rate of learning thing. Recall Moore was even younger than RHR and on a team all by himself. In his first few races it was very evident that he was more than capable of winning. It took him a long time to win given how well he was driving. I realize he probably had a better car/team then RHR.

As for Bourdais, I've been very surprised in his drop in performance. Winning the F3000 doesn't nessisarly mean drivers are of similar talent to each other. Compare Brack, Montoya, Junky, Bourdais. While all are quiet good, there's a huge range of talent there.

I'm not sure american spirit is a worse team than PK or Coyne, but they have worse equipment. Vasser like Fernadez doesn't seem to have it anymore, but he's done a decent job this year.

[James Wilkenson]

I think the Jury is still out...although I expect he will be a journeyman at best.......but so is Vasser and he won a championship.......but RHR reay is good in front of the camera and will an asset to CART for the rebuiling years

[MLM]

Perhaps RHR should have had another year of Atlantics under his belt.
However, he's a rookie and with a team which isn't exactly "top drawer"(don't forget, Jimmy has been stuggling, also).
I got a chuckle out of the "ugly American" line..Ryan is ANYTHING but ugly, hehe
RHR's also a nice guy, too. It's a shame to see him struggle but he has a lot of poise which has served him well this year. You don't hear him whine or complain much.

[Jay]

I think Ryan's done everything that could have been expected of him this year... he's on par or ahead of his teammate most of the time in even older Reynards than Walker are running. I'm just not sure what those dissapointed by him had expected...

[BootsOntheSide]

Considering the poor equipment and often farcical-looking team, I think he's been quite impressive. He's given Vasser a few frights and ran at the right pace consistanly. He hasn't made many mistakes either, and is showign himself to be a future star. I think he IS basically ready for the current level of CART. and he hasn't struggled to show that.

[corkholio]

Originally posted by BootsOntheSide
Considering the poor equipment and often farcical-looking team, I think he's been quite impressive. He's given Vasser a few frights and ran at the right pace consistanly. He hasn't made many mistakes either, and is showign himself to be a future star. I think he IS basically ready for the current level of CART. and he hasn't struggled to show that.

Hunter-Reay = North American version of Felipe Massa.

[BootsOntheSide]

Why do you have to specifically copy my post to respond to, condsidering that others like Omega and Jay haver said much the same things as me? I know you don't like me, and I don't especially like you, but this doesn't have to be persdonal. Throwing insults around doesn't make for a good forum, and I'm certainly glad there aren't 1000 Corkholios posting here.

[corkholio]

It has more to do with "not making many mistakes" than who posted it. I don't know how insulted RHR would be being compared to a Ferrari test driver. Cripes, relax.

[jjspierx]

Originally posted by corkholio
He made the jump too quickly from Atlantics to Champ Cars. Yeah he won races last year but he had the best car and his racecraft still needed work. Being on a new team on a shoestring budget doesn't help either. He probably could become a decent driver but I doubt he will be a star, assuming he can find a ride after daddy's money runs dry.

Then again, Hunter-Reay is one of them super mean evil ugly Americans, so he can't possibly have the talent to compete with ride-buyin' Latin boyband studs.

Ummm....what? How much do you think you know about RHR? Apparently you think you know a lot, but I can tell you, that you don't. In 99 RHR won the Skiper Barber Eastern Series as well as the Barber NATIONAL series. He won 17 races and had 26 podiums in 31 races that year. In 2001 he was the Barber Dodge Pro Series Champion. In 2002 he tied for the most race wins, led the most laps by far, and was definently one of the, if not the most promising driver of the Atlantic Series. Even though his final standings dropped off in the second half of the series due to a series of mechanical failures. RHR has also done endurance racing, not mention multiple karting championships. He is QUITE capable of driving a Champ car.

And where the hell did you get your information that he is paying for his ride with daddy's money? I happen to know for a fact that Ryan has worked his ass in order to get sponsorship, and he also has a personal investor who he has a contract with that he is going to be paying back for a LONG time. And its NOT his Father.

[corkholio]

I am sure you know Ryan better than I do, but you need to get some of your facts straight. He never won the BDPS championship. I know ROY in 2000, and he finished something like 4th or 5th in the standings in 2001; Nicolas Rondet won the championship that year, that I know for sure. Hylton probably had the best team of engineers next to Dorricott in 2002, and he had as many crashes as mechanicals. Even Daziel who wasn't exactly the second coming came right in and beat him. *Nobody* here said he couldn't drive a Champ Car. Nick Hunter-Reay is one of the major investors at ASTJ, that I do know.

[Matthopps]

Ryan, providing he gets the right lucky breaks, will definately be around in a few years time - potential champion? yeah why not?! He's done a solid if unspectacular job at a new team with an experienced team mate to guide him; just what he needs to be able to learn the ropes of CART so he can challenge for the title in future years. And he's American! - there's not many of those in CART is there!? for what is a North-American based series. Thats like F1 without many Europeans.

[jjspierx]

Originally posted by corkholio
I am sure you know Ryan better than I do, but you need to get some of your facts straight. He never won the BDPS championship. I know ROY in 2000, and he finished something like 4th or 5th in the standings in 2001; Nicolas Rondet won the championship that year, that I know for sure.

I stand corrected, he did not win the Barber Dodge series, sorry for that bit of misinformation. You are also correct in that Hylton was one of the better funded teams, largely in part by the money that Hunter-Reay brought to the team with with his sponsors and invenstors. He did have his share of mistakes in Atlantics, but he also suffered from a string of mechanicals, it was 2 if not 3 races in a row(including RA and Mid-Ohio if I remember correctly) which is where he went from one of the front-runners in the championship, to be being lucky to finish in the top 5. It was a shame because then we when he got his ride in CART, lots of people bad-mouthed him and ASTJ's decision saying that Valiente and Fogarty were much more qualified drivers and Ryan wasn't ready for Champcars, etc... Now I'm not gonna talk down Valiente or Fogarty, both are great drivers, but I think Ryan is every bit as good a driver as the both of them, even though he didn't finish 1st or 2nd in the Atlantic championship.

And as for your information of Nick Hunter-Reay's investment in ASTJ Racing, you are probably correct although I know nothing of that deal, I only knew about his ride with Hylton and the deal with his investor then who had been with him since Formula Dodge.

[corkholio]

The thing with RHR was not so much that he is a mediocre talent like Studolfo Lavin who has done nothing in his career, but that RHR has the raw talent, but having watched Atlantics rather closely last year IMHO he just wasn't to make the big jump right away. In the races where the car was perfect he did a nearly perfect job, but when he was under pressure to race he was still making mistakes. I still don't think he should have made the jump so quickly, but that said he is starting to come around a bit better, but under the current economic climate he doesn't have too long before he has to start running up front to get someone else to pay the bills.

[Snrub]

Mid-Ohio qualifying shows Hunter-Raey may have something special after all. Virtually the same time as PT has for poll.

[GP Racer]

Surely Ryan must have read this thread, so he ended the confusion we seemed to be having and showed us just how good he can really be! Well done Ryan and go ahead and shout if you want to, I know I did!

Ah, the power of the internet!

[corkholio]

Good job by RHR today only losing out in the pits, and good drive by Jimmy til the spin, but is it a bit of a disappointment when those same cars won the race last year?

[JohnSSC]

RHR drove a nice clean race - just what he and American Spirit needed.

[Jay]

Originally posted by GP Racer
Surely Ryan must have read this thread, so he ended the confusion we seemed to be having and showed us just how good he can really be! Well done Ryan and go ahead and shout if you want to, I know I did!

Ah, the power of the internet!

I don't know the part about this thread having to do anything with Ryan's good drive today, but of course, almost everyone has access to the internet .