Ovals in ‘08: Hunter-Reay scored six top-10 finishes on the oval tracks in 2008. His best finish came at the Indianapolis 500 when he earned the Rookie of the Year title for his sixth place finish.  He started in the top-10 at four of the oval tracks; his best start was fourth at Nashville.  In Kansas, Hunter-Reay started 12th and finished 18th after a lengthy mid-race change of his gearbox.

In the Points: Hunter-Reay is ranked fifth in the 2009 IndyCar championship.

SPEED Writer:  Hunter-Reay will be a featured columnist throughout the 2009 IndyCar season on the www.speedtv.com website, the official site for SPEED television.  Check-out his first column, titled “Walls and Wedding Proposals in Long Beach” at http://auto-racing.speedtv.com/article/hunter-reay-walls-and-wedding-proposals-in-long-beach.

Last Week at Long Beach: It was a big week for Hunter-Reay at Long Beach.  He kicked off the event by celebrating his five-year anniversary with his girlfriend, Beccy Gordon in a very special way…by asking for her hand in marriage.  The couple became engaged Thursday evening.  A notoriously busy event for sponsor and series appearances, Hunter-Reay signed autographs for his partner IZOD at Macys, spent the night on the U.S.S. Reagan and filmed a piece for the Carson Daly Show, which aired this week.  Unfortunately, his on-track experience was less memorable.  Hunter-Reay started 12th and held on to finish 11th after a wild day on the track caused handling gremlins on his #21 William Rast machine. 

Ryan Hunter-Reay on Kansas Speedway: “This weekend will be my first time back on an oval in nearly seven months, and I am really looking forward to it.  Kansas is a great race going into the month of May at Indianapolis Motor Speedway because it gives us a good baseline to work off of.   I am really excited to get in the Vision car this weekend as the team has a record of strong cars on the ovals.  They’ve done a ton of work in that area and it paid off last season, the team had nine top-10 finishes on the ovals, so hopefully we can pick up right where they left off and take it a few steps further to victory lane in 2009!”