Hunter-Reay on the broken suspension at the Indy 500: “It was a matter of survival”

Ryan Hunter-Reay thought he was losing his mind.

The 2014 Indianapolis 500 winner has been an oval expert for decades, but something didn’t feel right with his No. 23 Dreyer & Reinbold Racing/Cusick Motorsports Chevy on Sunday at the Indy 500. The No. 23 Chevy started from a very impressive 12th place, but soon dropped like a rock.

He swore that the rear of the car had a mind of its own – a devilish problem at 370 km/h – and it was only a post-event inspection by DRR mechanics that confirmed that Hunter-Reay was sane.

“I got a really good start, passed Takuma Sato on the outside in Turn 1 and then we had the accident with (Tom) Blomquist and the others – (Marcus) Ericsson – so I was pretty confident about where we were going,” Hunter-Reay told RACER. “And then on the restart on Lap 5, it was super tight on the front straight and somehow Kyle Larson came up and hit my left rear as I was passing him. It was mainly a side by side collision. We obviously didn’t want to hit each other but it was still a pretty big collision.

“When it happened, I didn’t think anything of it. It wasn’t until I was really loose for some reason – just insanely loose in the middle of the corner, and it came and went lap after lap. It was never consistent. I wondered, ‘Is this some kind of phantom?’ Because usually when something is wrong, it stays wrong and is wrong all the time. But it came and went and I started to wonder if I was suddenly going crazy.

“We went into the pits once to check the left rear wheel because they thought they saw some damage, but there was nothing. So I went back out and continued my race until the thing with Scott (Dixon) happened, when I had a huge hit.”

Hunter-Reay was thrown into the grass and spun back onto the track heading into Turn 3 as he attempted to pass Dixon on the inside. However, Dixon moved across and the impact on the right side eliminated the No. 23 Chevy.

A 360-degree turn through the grass at over 320 km/h?

Incredible.

📺: #Indy500 on NBC and Peacock pic.twitter.com/5Biq7N5Y5B

— NTT INDYCAR SERIES (@IndyCar) 26 May 2024

“After the race they found that the nut on the left rear lower wishbone where it connects to the wishbone had sheared off, the bolt had come loose and there was quite a bit of play there,” he said. “So that was definitely the cause of the wandering tail and the reason we fell so far back. In hindsight it’s nice to know that I’m not crazy and I understand why it happened. But for me it was pure survival mode out there. I was just trying not to crash. I thought maybe we need to do something with the tools.

“I started running the rear bar really soft and the front bar really hard, then I got too much understeer. So I put a front wing on. And I thought it was just a combination of things. You’re just trying to solve problems while you’re driving 200 miles an hour in the field and trying to save the race. It’s 500 miles, so I keep thinking, ‘This is going to be a long 500 if it keeps going like this.’

“With my experience and everything else, I stayed calm. I told the team, ‘I’m going to be very conservative with the tooling. Let’s put a front wing on to compensate and see if that helps.’ And we kept going. I was able to keep up with Scott and Scott ended up in third place at the end of the race. I had this big lead over him and then it was ‘Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride.'”

Hunter-Reay says Dixon apologized for the contact that ended his race.

“We talked about it and he apologized and at this point it is what it is,” he said. “I reiterated the fact that we have been racing very cleanly against each other for 20 years and said he would never do that on purpose and that he didn’t get a call from his spotter. I still don’t understand why he passed Will when he was catching up to Will (Power) so quickly and why he ended up on the white line where I was going, but it happened and I have a lot of respect for him.

“The same goes for Helio. He and I rode wheel-to-wheel in the 2014 500 and did crazy things. And if something happened between me and Helio, I wouldn’t attack him right away. I wouldn’t make a big scene out of it. I have too much respect for those guys. Especially the guys like Will, Helio and Dixon, who I’ve been racing against for almost 20 years. I sent him a text message showing him my side of things and the gaps and everything else, and he got it. An unfortunate situation.”