Ryan Hunter-Reay drives through the boot during the IndyCar Series' Watkins Glen Camping World Grand Prix at The Glen on Sunday in Watkins Glen, N.Y. Hunter-Reay won the race.

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.”