Rahal Letterman Racing carried a brand-new look into the 2007 IndyCar Series, but while the striking car colors and solid driver lineup were new, the team’s commitment to excellence and determination to succeed continued to serve as the cornerstone for a year of improvement.

 

The team welcomed IndyCar veteran Scott Sharp to the fold along with an energetic new sponsor in the Patrón Spirits Company, and the long-time IndyCar star wasted no time in showing how he built his championship resumé. The all-time leader among IndyCar drivers in terms of starts, consecutive starts and top-10 finishes, Sharp led the RLR squad with a pair of podium finishes, three top-fives, ten top-10 runs and a pole. The Floridian scored the sixth pole of his career and his first since 2001 when he topped the time charts at Texas, giving RLR its first pole since 2005.

 

Sharp finished eighth in the IndyCar season point standings, was running at the end of 16 of the 17 races – a stat matched only by series champion Dario Franchitti - and led the entire series in laps completed, making all but 23 of the 2,933 laps run this year. In fact, Sharp’s percentage of laps completed (99.2 percent) set a new Rahal Letterman Racing record, eclipsing the old mark set in 2004 by Vitor Meira.

 

“I'm very proud of the job that the entire Patron Rahal-Letterman Team did over the course of the 2007 season!” Sharp said. “The professional attitude, from top to bottom, of the RLR organization, and in particular, my Patrón Tequila crew, was what impressed me the most.”

 

Sharp was joined in the RLR stable of drivers by 2007 Bombardier Learjet IndyCar Rookie of the Year Ryan Hunter-Reay, who replaced Jeff Simmons 11 races into the season. Despite having no previous experience in IndyCars, the former Champ Car star jumped right in to the deep end in his first race. Overcoming two instances of a stuck throttle in his first race weekend, Hunter-Reay served notice that he would be a force, qualifying in the top 10 and finishing seventh in his series debut at Mid-Ohio.

 

Hunter-Reay would continue to impress upon taking over the seat in the Ethanol-sponsored machine. He became the first IndyCar driver in six seasons to score top-seven finishes in his first two starts and never qualified lower than 12^th in his six starts. His three top-seven finishes allowed him to capture the series’ top rookie award, setting an IndyCar record for fewest starts by a rookie-of-the-year winner. He also became the first RLR driver to earn a spot in the Firestone Fast Six qualifying format, earning the fifth starting position for IndyCar’s return to Belle Isle Park. 

 

“I am very proud to have won rookie of the year. A couple of months ago when we were putting this deal together, I never expected to be taking this honor, I just knew I needed to come in and perform well,” said Hunter-Reay. “I think we showed what this team and I are capable of and I hope to continue moving to the front next year. This has been a total team effort in what we have accomplished this year and I hope earning this award helps people recognize what a good team this is.”

 

The team entered its first full season with the Dallara chassis in 2007 after making the switch midway through the ’06 campaign. Preseason testing yielded some gains for Sharp and Simmons, but the early part of the season saw some struggles for the veteran outfit.

 

A pair of road courses to open the season failed to yield a top-10 run for RLR, but the team rebounded in style in Motegi where Sharp finished sixth while Simmons came home in eighth. The team officially started its turnaround at the Indianapolis 500 where Simmons came from 13^th on the grid to run in the top five for much of the race. A rain-soaked race scrambled strategies throughout the field, but Sharp took advantage to score a sixth-place finish – his best ever Indy 500 result. Simmons came home 11^th, marking the only time in the five races from Motegi to Texas that he would fail to finish in the top 10.

 

Sharp used the Indy race as a springboard to a strong summer. His sixth-place run triggered a skein of five straight top-eight finishes, which included the Texas pole and a stout effort in Iowa where he started fourth and finished third.

 

“From the beginning of the year, we knew that we had a lot to learn about the Dallara chassis and didn't start the season with the kind of pace that we had hoped,” Sharp recalled. “However, the team worked very hard, had a never give-up attitude, always gave me great pit stops, and by the end of the season, had closed the gap quite considerably to the top teams!  At the last race of the season, where we finished wheel to wheel with the two Penske cars illustrates how far we had come from Homestead!”

 

The Rahal Letterman Racing squad punctuated the season with one of its best outings of the year in the ’07 finale at Chicagoland Speedway. Sharp came from 11^th on the grid to place fifth while Hunter-Reay sealed top rookie honors with a seventh-place run.

 

Sharp continued to build his impressive IndyCar stat sheet with his 2007 results, extending his series-record consecutive-start streak to 138, his overall start total to a series-record 146 and his record of top-10 finishes to 82. He earned more than $1,000,000 for the fourth time in the last seven years and ran his career earnings total to more than $10,000,000.

 

“We definitely showed improvement, we gave Scott his best Indy 500 finish, won a pole and bringing Ryan in certainly helped us see where we had been lacking in some areas,” said team co-owner Bobby Rahal. “We’re still not winning, which is the goal, but I think that we definitely showed improvement in many areas and now we just need to keep building on that and get after it next year.”