INDIANAPOLIS – Ryan Hunter-Reay knows that with Scott Dixon leading the Verizon IndyCar Series title fight by nearly a full round’s worth of points, the time to strike back is running out.

In fact, there are only four races remaining in the quest to crown American open wheel racing’s champion for 2018, beginning with this weekend’s ABC Supply 500 at Pocono (Pa.) Raceway.

Hunter-Reay is a past recipient of that championship title, having added his name to the Astor Cup trophy in 2012, but has struggled somewhat since that triumphant run, which included a come-from-behind surge in the season finale at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, Calif.

Finishes of seventh, sixth, sixth, 12th and ninth in points over the past five seasons meant that few people earmarked Hunter-Reay as a strong contender for this year’s title, but the 37-year-old Floridian has quashed those doubts soundly during the course of the year.

Hunter-Reay picked up his first Indy car victory since 2015 during the second race of the Detroit doubleheader in June and ranks fifth in points heading into Pocono, where he won three years ago.

Though he’s 95 points back of Dixon in the hunt for his second title, Hunter-Reay hasn’t been discouraged by his year at all, thanks to the resurgence in speed he’s had with his No. 28 DHL Honda for Andretti Autosport.

“I think overall we’ve been pretty strong and competitive everywhere we’ve gone,” said Hunter-Reay during a Tuesday afternoon teleconference. “We’re back up at the front regularly fighting for podiums, and that’s important.

“No doubt, the past couple races have been missed opportunities, but more often than not, we show up at a racetrack and we’re contending. It’s been a strong season in many ways. There have been some missed opportunities in there, though, without a doubt. Hopefully we can close out the season.”

Those missed opportunities referenced by Hunter-Reay include three runner-up finishes, which have come at Barber, the opening round in Detroit and Road America. The latter, particularly, stung for Hunter-Reay after he was chasing down eventual race winner Josef Newgarden in the closing laps but came up just short of his second win of the season.

He’s also had some missed chances at Pocono, as well, but has finished inside the top 10 at ‘The Tricky Triangle’ in each of the past three Indy car races at the 2.5-mile track.

“One of our Pocono results … we had a mechanical suspension failure during the race. That sidelined us. The next one I think we were running second or third and got run over by Takuma (Sato) in pit lane on the entry, which broke the suspension,” noted Hunter-Reay. “In 2016, we were leading the race and we had an electrical failure that put us all the way to the back of the field. We came back through – all the way back through – to finish third, but just ran out of time.

I think more often than not we’ve been very competitive there; we’ve shown that we can be strong,” Hunter-Reay added. “Hopefully this year we can turn that around. With an all-new car, it’s basically starting from a clean sheet of paper for everybody. It will be interesting to see how we can roll out.”

Oddly enough, Hunter-Reay’s pursuit of the season title this year is similar in nature to when he won it in 2012. He had to fight from behind then, just as he is now, and said that first championship run has taught him plenty about how to prepare and approach this one.

“That 2012 season, there were so many swings and kinks in that season,” Hunter-Reay pointed out. “As soon as I thought I figured out who really had the upper hand, it all changed. We had a strong head of steam going in that season. We won Baltimore, then we went to Sonoma, were taken out in the hairpin on a restart and got shuffled all the way to the back. At that point, I think everyone wrote us off.

“Going to Fontana, nobody really had us at a shot of winning it. I forget what the points deficit was, but we ended up winning it by three points. That year taught me that it’s not over till the last lap, especially with double points on the line. (The finale) could be a huge swing race. There’s still a lot of racing to go.”

Hunter-Reay admits, however, that he will likely need some outside help in order to win the title.

“Being 95 points down to Scott, what needs to happen now is we need to go on a run and he needs to start having some bad luck, some difficult races or some circumstances going against him,” said Hunter-Reay. “It can easily happen. You just have to keep your head down. In this series, it’s just like in a race: you could be starting mid-pack or back of the pack, but if you go into it with the right mindset, keep your head down, be tenacious and stay persistent, you can win races and you can win championships.

“We just have to keep focused and make the most of what we can control. The number one thing we have to do is go on the offensive and make a run for it.”