In the 1980s, drug lords raced. Everyone knew. No one spoke. Now, it’s one’s son.
Tune into a Verizon IndyCar Series race, and you might hear Ryan Hunter-Reay referred to as “Captain America.”
Hang around Delray Beach, Florida, in the 1980s, and you might hear Ryan’s father referred to as “Gary P. Matthews” or any of a dozen other aliases.
His real name? Nicholas Hunter-Reay — Nick, usually. Captain America’s dad, the cocaine kingpin.
Charged in 1979, the elder Hunter-Reay fled Los Angeles, first to Dallas (Ryan’s birthplace), then to Fort Lauderdale (Ryan’s hometown). He was caught in 1988, with his “reputation for violence” and connections to a Colombian cartel noted by the LA Times.
In the intervening nine years, he lived well. The assets seized in his arrest had a value of nearly $1.5 million in today’s currency. Wrote the Sun-Sentinel:
Agents said they are not sure how long [Hunter-]Reay had been in South Florida, but they have a few clues about how he spent his time here. He lived in a three- bedroom penthouse condo on South Ocean Boulevard in Delray Beach cluttered with photos of him with various women.
He dined in fancy restaurants in Boca Raton and Miami, once ordering everything on the menu for an indecisive date. He owned two cars — a Ferrari and a Mercedes Benz — and listened to police scanners in his home, agents and local undercover officers said.
He collected antique bills and coins.
“There were three suitcases full of old bank notes and coins in the condo,” Delray Beach police Lt. Mark Davis said. “We found receipts that showed he had paid $150,000 cash for some of the stuff.”
[Hunter-]Reay had a large walk-in closet packed full of Italian and French handmade suits.
Among his purchases? Ryan’s first go-kart, the start of what would become a championship driving career.
One paper — no longer hosted on Google’s newspaper archives — even reported on a seven-year-old son of Nick Hunter-Reay in their story on the narcotrafficker’s arrest.
That was Ryan’s age in 1988.
Somewhere between Ryan Hunter-Reay’s IndyCar debut in 2003 and his drug baron father’s capture in 1988, the story gets lost.
There is no information on a trial for Nick Hunter-Reay. There are no stories about his sentencing, as there are for some of his former associates. Legal databases return nothing.
It’s entirely possible Hunter-Reay went to prison. Records suggest he never did.
Whatever the case, he certainly didn’t suffer. In 2002, Hunter-Reay reappeared, forming Global Racing, LLC, with Dan Benton, Chris James, Stefan Johansson, and Steven Hawkins.
Through this company, Hunter-Reay, Benton, James, and Johansson funded the American Spirit Team Johansson IndyCar entrant. That team debuted in 2003 with Ryan Hunter-Reay as one of its drivers.
Fifteen years after being found, and thirty-four years after first being arrested, Nick Hunter-Reay lived the rich life of a professional racing team co-owner and investor.
His son got to play with the cars.
Nick’s name returned to the racing spotlight in 2012, when he and Ryan became involved in a proposed IndyCar race in Fort Lauderdale. His presence in the plans caused one astute Broward Beat commenter to question the local government.
All the while, Ryan drove to IndyCar’s season-long title in 2012, then claimed the Indianapolis 500 prize in 2014. Nick attended the Victory Banquet. He even posed for photos with Ryan’s car and trophy the next day.
Any consequences Nick Hunter-Reay faced did little to oust him from a socioeconomic status gained unlawfully.
Ryan Hunter-Reay’s story, as told in the media, omits the part about living the first years of his life as the son of a wealthy drug fugitive — the one who bankrolled the start of Ryan’s career, both as a child and as a professional.
Hunter-Reay’s public tale centers more on his mother, Lydia, who passed from colon cancer a few years before Ryan’s racing earned him his largest accolades. Leading IndyCar writer Curt Cavin summarized the Hunter-Reay family history:
[Lydia] was born in the Toronto suburb of Hamilton, Ontario, but despised the cold weather. At 19, she got a one-way ticket to Fort Lauderdale, Fla., to begin anew as a nurse. She never looked back.
. . .
It was there she met Nick, who owned a stereo equipment business. They married and had the child that was her everything.
In his chat with Cavin, Ryan Hunter-Reay informed the world of an ambitious woman who married an electronics salesman, all taking place in Florida — despite Ryan’s Dallas birthplace, and Nick’s “place of business” in Los Angeles.
To the public, there were none of the countless women in photographs and on extravagant dates with Nick during Ryan’s childhood.
Wanting to be the Captain America IndyCar media had branded him, Hunter-Reay was the product of a working-class family, all intact, all in love.
Any public discussion of wealth by Ryan was cutesy at best. A fluff piece for ESPN discussed Ryan’s paid-off house and “baller” boat before charting his four-day spending total of $15,887.
As his publicists would tell you, that was just the American Dream to which he’d claimed his right.
Ryan Hunter-Reay’s face will never leave the Borg-Warner Trophy. One gets added each year, commemorating the Indy 500 champion.
In the same duration, nearly 1.5 million Americans will have their faces captured in mugshots for drug-related offenses. The overwhelming majority are simply for possession.
The criminal record rarely leaves them.
Few possession offenses are possible without narcotrafficking. Most drug arrests ruin one life — maybe a few. Drug traffickers ruin thousands.
Nick Hunter-Reay watched live with VIP access as his son won the Indy 500. He stood with the trophy that Ryan’s face later became part of. He weathered whatever fallout came from 1979 and 1988 to be a player in the racing scene, even helping his son break into a colossally expensive sport.
Public money spent nine years looking for him. It could’ve helped people — people addicted to drugs, people at risk of getting into them.
Instead, some of those people consumed the millions of dollars worth of drugs Hunter-Reay put into streets in California and elsewhere.
They faced consequences. Nick — a drug fugitive able to stroll into the government of the locality where he was in hiding to solicit funding for an auto race from which he’d draw income — didn’t.
But if you hear Ryan Hunter-Reay called “Captain America” when you watch IndyCar racing, don’t be angered. It’s a fair nickname.
What could be more American than wealth and impunity gained through the destruction of others?
This story originally appeared on my Medium page, but was “suspended” without notice or explanation.