IndyCar: Indy 500 champ Ryan Hunter-Reay endures rough Detroit weekend - MotorSportsTalk

In every form of sport, the pendulum is always swinging between victory and defeat. Sometimes, it swings rather quickly.

Last weekend, Ryan Hunter-Reay had the biggest moment of his career when he won the Indianapolis 500. That victory also enabled him to make up a ton of Verizon IndyCar Series championship points as well.

But the driver of Andretti Autosport’s No. 28 DHL Honda came down to earth in a big way this weekend at the Chevrolet Indy Dual in Detroit Presented by Quicken Loans.

Nearly everything that could go wrong for him did in both 70-lap races.

Today, Hunter-Reay was forced to start in the last row after brushing the wall in qualifying for the second time in as many days. Like everyone else, he tried to play the strategy game and salvage his Motor City weekend, but he was sidelined with 10 laps to go due to an electrical failure.

“I’ll try to erase this one from my memory and try to move on to Texas,” Hunter-Reay told ESPN. “What put us out was we lost pressure in the shift actuator, so we couldn’t get out of first gear.

“But from the beginning, we started with a puncture and had to come in. Then we were off-strategy, we tried saving fuel, then we had to abandon that because [the race] went green in the middle. Nothing we did worked this weekend.”

In Saturday’s Dual 1, Hunter-Reay found the tire barriers in the final lap while trying to pass teammate Marco Andretti and finished 16th.

Today, he had to swallow a 19th-place result, which causes him to fall to third place in the championship at 27 points behind Saturday’s winner, Will Power (today’s winner, Helio Castroneves, is second at 19 points behind).

All in all, it was a pretty crummy weekend on Belle Isle for our new ‘500’ champion. Afterwards, he echoed his TV comments of erasing the weekend on his Twitter page.

I'm going to entirely erase Detroit GP weekend from my mind…….. startiiiiiiiiiiing now.

— Ryan Hunter-Reay (@RyanHunterReay) June 1, 2014

On the bright side, he will soon get to enjoy another perk of winning the Greatest Spectacle in Racing – and one that should provide him with a needed laugh or two.

“You just move on from these and we’re gonna go to New York tomorrow and be on [The Late Show with David Letterman],” he said. “So that will be fun.”

Still, as he himself noted, he could’ve used some fun on the track today.

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The IndyCar Series has re-signed NTT as its title sponsor in a multiyear agreement starting in 2024.

NTT, a global information technology and communications company based in Japan, became the series’ title sponsor before the 2019 season after starting as a sponsor of the No. 10 Dallara-Honda for Chip Ganassi Racing.

NTT Data (a subsidiary of parent company Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corp.) will remain the official technology partner of IndyCar, Indianapolis Motor Speedway, the Indy 500 and the NASCAR Brickyard weekend.

With the extension, an IndyCar spokesman said NTT would become the second-longest title sponsor in series history. The longest title sponsor was PPG from 1980-97 (under the CART sanction of the Champ Car Series).

NTT replaced Verizon, which was IndyCar’s title sponsor from 2014-18 after IZOD from 2010-13.

“NTT is an excellent partner across our enterprise with strong expertise and a deep commitment to our sport,” Penske Corp. chairman and IndyCar owner Roger Penske said in a release. “From Smart Venue technology at the Racing Capital of the World to the reimagined Series mobile application, NTT is transforming the fan experience in new and innovative ways. We look forward to a bright future together.”

NTT has used artificial intelligence-enabled optical detection technology at IMS to provide information to the track’s operations and security teams, helping improve fan traffic flow and safety, the track said.

“IndyCar is a great partner for NTT Data because of our shared commitment to driving innovation, increasing sustainability and delivering amazing experiences,” NTT Data CEO Kaz Nishihata said in a release. “We also appreciate how IndyCar is so diverse, with drivers from 15 different countries, and races that range from short ovals and superspeedways to road and street courses. It’s both an incredible sport and a wonderful example for our world.”

NTT also has been instrumental in helping redesign the IndyCar app and providing more race and driver data for use in NBC Sports’ broadcasts by utilizing 140 data points from every car in the field.

“NTT is fully invested in the development and growth of our sport and has already established a terrific track record in our industry with problem-solving capabilities and access to top talent and tools,” Penske Entertainment president and CEO Mark Miles said.

Said NTT Data Services CEO Bob Pryor: “We’re thrilled to continue our collaborations that enhance and expand the fan experience for motorsports and serve as proof points for data analytics, AI, and other innovative digital technologies. For more than a century, this racing series has pioneered innovations making driving safer for everyone, and by continuing this relationship, we will accelerate the pace of innovations and new technologies, particularly related to sustainability that ultimately can benefit organizations, communities and individuals around the world.”

Starting as a Japanese telephone company, NTT grew into a $100 billion-plus tech services giant with U.S. operations based in Plano, Texas.