HILLIARD, Ohio - Redemption time is at hand for Rahal Letterman Racing and  Ryan Hunter-Reay (#17 Ethanol Dallara/Honda/Firestone) as the team looks to brush aside a bitterly disappointing Sonoma weekend and finish strong with a trip to Detroit’s Belle Isle circuit this weekend, followed by the season-ending jaunt to Chicagoland Speedway the next week.

The Belle Isle course is a temporary street track situated in the middle of Belle Isle Park, which is on an island in the Detroit River. The tight 14-turn course was the site of Hunter-Reay’s best qualifying result of the year (fifth) in 2007, and the Floridian is looking forward to getting back to a track where he has had some success after earning his first Firestone Fast Six berth there last season.

“I’m just looking forward to getting back onto a street circuit,” Hunter-Reay said. “Belle Isle is where we had our best qualifying performance and we were running good until we had a mechanical issue. I am looking to make up for a disappointing weekend at Sonoma. I’m really glad that we don’t have a weekend off after that, so we can get right back to work and start making up ground."

The Ethanol car was strong for the first 20 laps last year before a broken drive shaft ended Hunter-Reay’s charge after just 24 trips around the 2.906-mile course.

The Rahal Letterman Racing machine had a three-race top-10 streak snapped in Sonoma, but did post its best qualifying result (seventh) since early July when Hunter-Reay gridded fourth at Nashville. Hunter-Reay has finished on the lead lap in each of the last four races and is sixth among IndyCar Series drivers in laps completed.

The weekend gets an early start for the team as Hunter-Reay will participate in a Pump Tour for the Ethanol Promotion and Information Council (EPIC) on Wednesday afternoon. The tour will take place at the Valero fuel station at 32900 Mound Road in Warren, Michigan. The tour will feature Ryan offering discounted E10 fuel at $2.99/gallon, and Ethanol-enriched E85 fuel for $1.85/gallon. Ryan will also be giving away tickets to the Belle Isle event. The Pump Tour begins at 11:30 a.m. and runs until 1 p.m.

The Belle Isle on-track festivities get underway for the Indy Cars Friday with a pair of practice sessions. The Firestone Fast Six qualifying takes place at 11:30 a.m. on Saturday, with the session running until 1 p.m. The stars of the IndyCar Series will sign autographs from 1:30 to 2:30. Sunday’s 90-lap race gets underway at 3:45 Eastern Time and can be seen live on ABC.

Rahal Letterman Racing Belle Isle Notes:

The 2.906-mile road course will host the IndyCar Series for the second time, having re-debuted last year after being off the open-wheel landscape since 2001. The 14-turn circuit features a changing race surface, widening to 60 feet from a minimum of 35 at some points. It has a pair of backstraights, including the first one which is nearly 2,500 feet long. The island course opened in 1989 and hosted 13 events until 2001. Helio Castroneves, Michael Andretti and Emerson Fittipaldi are the only drivers to have won more than one race at Belle Isle and no driver has won more than twice. The race course is in Belle Isle Park, which is the largest island park in the United States.

Ryan Hunter-Reay will make his 65th open-wheel start this weekend and his second at Belle Isle. He is currently 10th in the series point standings but is just three points out of ninth and five out of eighth. Rahal Letterman Racing has not finished outside of the top-10 in points since joining the IndyCar Series in 2003. Hunter-Reay qualified a season-high fifth at Belle Isle last year but finished 18th after a drive train problem cropped up.

Team Facts - Rahal Letterman Racing has made 19 starts at Belle Isle, dating back to its opening appearance on the CART circuit in 1992. Bobby Rahal won the team’s second-ever race and its first appearance at the Detroit island circuit, but that would be the team’s only win there. Max Papis gave the team its only other Belle Isle podium when he finished second in 2000. The team last competed there in 2001, but then returned when the IndyCar Series came back to the island in 2007. RLR has eight top-10 results in its 19 starts but has 12 top-10 qualifying results.