SURFERS PARADISE, Australia -  Ryan Hunter-Reay (#17 Ethanol Dallara/Honda/Firestone) and his Rahal Letterman Racing teammates decided that if they were going to go halfway around the world to race only for prize money, they may as well get themselves a chunk of it before they left.

Hunter-Reay recorded another consistent effort running in the top-four all day and using a strong late-race pit stop to wrap up 2008 IndyCar Series action with a podium finish in Sunday’s Nikon Indy 300. Hunter-Reay finished third behind Ryan Briscoe and Scott Dixon, and was never challenged for the position after the Team Ethanol crew got him back in front of Alex Tagliani on their final pit stop of the day.

The podium finish is the second of the year for Rahal Letterman Racing and the team’s first since Ryan’s victory at Watkins Glen. Hunter-Reay started fifth and immediately vaulted into fourth when he got around Dario Franchitti at the start of the race.

“Luckily I was able to get around Dario early in the race, that made things a bit easier. I thought it was a pretty good move,” Hunter-Reay said. “After that we just settled into a rhythm and started ticking off some good laps.”

Hunter-Reay and the Ethanol car ran as high as second at one point in the race, but were content to run in third for the majority of the race.  Hunter-Reay was pushed back to 4th at one point under yellow when Tagliani crossed the pit out blend line before Hunter-Reay who was circulating behind the pace car but immediately ran down the third-placed Tagliani with 20 laps to go.  The Ethanol car was then stuck behind Tagliani for the next few trips around the 2.795-mile Surfers Paradise road course as he looked in vain for a safe way past the Canadian.

With full confidence that his Rahal Letterman Racing crew would execute a flawless pit stop as it has done all year long Hunter-Reay decided not to attempt a risky pass on track unless it became absolutely necessary he came down Pit Lane behind Tagliani for a green-flag stop on Lap 42 and the RLR crew delivered again getting Hunter-Reay out ahead of the Conquest Racing machine and back into third place.

“I was getting held up for sure behind Tagliani,” reported Hunter-Reay. “But as they always do, my Rahal Letterman Racing guys were able to get the job done in the pits and got us out ahead of him. From there we just tried to make sure that we didn’t make any mistakes. I love this race course and always seem to do well here, so today went according to plan.”

The 60-lap event went incident free for the remaining 18 laps, and despite Hunter-Reay turning faster laps than the leaders he could not erase the time lost being stuck behind Tagliani who he drove away from establishing a gap of more than ten seconds by the end of the race.  

Rahal Letterman cars have made 23 starts at Surfers Paradise dating back to 1992.  Hunter-Reay’s third place is a team high for this race.  The event was the first non-points paying race in the six-year career of Hunter-Reay, who finished on the podium for the second time this year. It was also the first podium in a non-points race for Rahal Letterman Racing, which last took part in an exhibition race in 1992 when Bobby Rahal finished sixth in the now-defunct Marlboro All-Star Challenge.

The team will now begin all preparations for the 2009 IndyCar Series and American Le Mans Series seasons. The team will release all relevant data about the team, sponsors and drivers as circumstances warrant.