Things haven't come easily for Bobby Rahal and his team in recent years.
A sign that things are changing for the better came Sunday when Ryan Hunter-Reay won at Watkins Glen to give Rahal Letterman Racing its first win in four years.
Once a nearly perennial contender in CART, the team co-owned by TV personality David Letterman has mostly struggled since moving to the IRL's IndyCar Series in 2003.
The best moments came in 2004 when Buddy Rice won three races, including the Indianapolis 500, and then-rookie Danica Patrick became a national sensation by qualifying and finishing fourth at Indy -- both records for a woman at the Brickyard.
But Rice and Patrick are both driving for different teams now and it's been mostly downhill for Rahal Letterman since.
What had been a promising three-car team has diminished to a one-car operation that most weeks has raced in the middle of the pack -- or worse.
The lowest point came at the 2006 season-opener at Homestead-Miami Speedway when rookie Paul Dana, preparing to make his first start for the team, was killed in a crash during the morning warmup.
That devastated everyone on the team and the recovery has been slow and painful.
"For us, it has been a bit of a drought," Rahal said. "And there were comments made about this team by some of our previous drivers about our desire and our commitment. Really, what it boils down to is you have to have the right person in the driver's seat."
The 27-year-old Hunter-Reay is something of a salvage job himself.
He showed flashes of real talent while racing in CART, which later became Champ Car. The Texas-born driver won two races in that series, including a dominating performance in 2004 on the one-mile oval at Milwaukee, where he set a series record by leading all 250 laps.
But Hunter-Reay couldn't find a home, moving from team to team before finding himself without a ride at the end of 2005.
"I was driving a couple Grand-Am (sports car) races here and there, and looking for some NASCAR testing," Hunter-Reay said of 2006. "I didn't sit down though. I was out there trying to make myself visible. And I like to think I drove the wheels off anything I got into.
"I couldn't go out there and wreck any race cars, but I went out and I learned and I applied myself. In every race, I was my biggest critic."
Rahal, a three-time CART champion and the 1986 Indy 500 winner, said he had been watching Hunter-Reay's development for years and liked what he saw.
With six races remaining last season, he hired Hunter-Reay to replace Jeff Simmons, who had been the replacement for Dana and never quite caught on.
"And this guy, since the day he came on to the team almost a year ago now, at Mid-Ohio, he elevated the performance of the team immediately," Rahal said. "We just got better and better.
"Three road courses in a row we've been in the Firestone Fast 6 (in qualifying). And it's because Ryan has been able to take the car to a new level and work with our engineers and our guys to kind of keep it there and make it stronger and stronger.
"So, for me it's vindication a little bit. But I'm just so happy for our team and all the mechanics who work so hard. This is a brutal series in terms of the timing of the race, the tempo every weekend."
Having a one-car team can also be a definite disadvantage, especially when battling week after week against multicar teams like the four-car Andretti Green Racing team and the two-car operations at Penske Racing and Chip Ganassi Racing that get to pile up race and test data and share all of that information.
But Rahal doesn't want to rebuild his team too fast.
"I think you do need a two-car team, providing you have the drivers working closely together and committed to the team and vice versa," he said. "Just numbers doesn't do it. In some respects, after the last three years or so, it was a three-ring circus there for a while.
"Being forced into a one-car deal has really forced us to concentrate on just the one thing. I think it's been good, actually. If we were to go to a multicar team again, I think we've learned some things from then and from now that we could apply in the future. If we're a one-car team next year, not that I want to be, but I'd be just as happy with it."
Hunter-Reay, ninth in the season standings and only 21 points behind fifth-place Marco Andretti heading into Saturday night's race at Nashville, Tenn., is confident that the team can continue its improvement, no matter how many cars and drivers it has.
"At the beginning of the year, Bobby told me to go out there and make something of this and to make something of building this team around myself," Hunter-Reay said. "We all get along so great. It's really a special thing to be a part of. The fact that we've been building, and get faster and faster and faster is a neat thing. And to finally win, (it's) huge."
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