Ryan Hunter-Reay would rather Lady Luck just leave him alone. That's because every time she stops by for a visit these days, she’s got nothing nice to tell him.

Hunting down a podium at Long Beach? Well, here comes a fluke electrical issue to derail your day.

Starting to feel good about yourself at Texas? Well, guess what? You’re about to get swept up in an unavoidable crash you didn’t cause.

Have a car capable of winning your second Indianapolis 500? Not anymore, because your engine is about to die. Oh, and just a reminder, this is a double points race, so your championship dreams are dead, too. … Have a nice day.

Time after time, week after week, Hunter-Reay has found himself on Lady Luck’s naughty list, and he’s not sure what he’s done to deserve it. So he’s making a request: Just leave me alone. To be clear, he’s not asking for a reversal of fortune. He’s not hoping his luck changes. He just wants to race unimpeded by any luck at all.

“I’ve been around racing for a while, and I have had good luck, bad luck, but I’d prefer to have just none at all,” Hunter-Reay told IndyStar, chuckling at his own misfortune — because what else can he do? “I would just like to be in control of my own result. That’s all I want.”

Doesn’t seem like a big ask, but it’s racing, Hunter-Reay said, and sometimes ... (stuff) happens.

He knows that better than most. This is not the first time Lady Luck has turned on him. In fact, Hunter-Reay seems to have been on the receiving end of her scorn pretty often throughout his career.

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“He has, unfortunately, more experience being disappointed with bad luck, bad circumstance than a lot of other drivers of his caliber,” said former IndyCar driver and NBCSN analyst Townsend Bell. “It just feels to me like he’s had a majority of his seasons compromised by bad luck and circumstance.”

Fortunately — or maybe it’s unfortunately — Hunter-Reay’s become well-versed in dealing with that disappointment.

Hunter-Reay’s saga of perseverance is well-known throughout the IndyCar world, but the short version goes something like this: More than once in his career, it appeared that despite his obvious talent and desire, circumstance would keep him out an Indy car.

He won races as an IndyCar rookie and sophomore, but in a floundering CART series that folded after his third year. He then found himself out of open-wheel racing altogether in 2006 with seemingly little chance of returning.

But when a 2007 midseason opportunity opened up with Rahal Letterman Racing, Hunter-Reay capitalized. He drove well enough with RLR to parlay it into a ride with Tony George’s Vision Racing, then eventually turned that into his dream job with childhood hero Michael Andretti. Along the way, there were numerous occasions where Hunter-Reay could easily have called it quits and no one would have blamed him. But he never did.

“I feel like he has proven his ability to knuckle down and, despite bad luck, has figured out to turn it around so many times before,” Bell said. “And that resiliency and belief in his ability is what got him to the position he’s in in IndyCar. He’s a 500 winner, a champion, has a long-term contract with a top team and he’s considered one of the very best in the sport."

That's exactly what he plans on doing this season. While it’s too late to do so in the championship, well, the championship doesn’t matter anymore.

“I haven’t even looked at that in weeks, because I honestly don’t care,” Hunter-Reay said. “We’re past that point now. With (not finishing at) Indy, that was too big a hit, and there’s been too much misfortune in one season to concentrate on points. It's all about wins now.

"Wins and getting ready for next year; that's it.”

Hunter-Reay told IndyStar he's optimistic heading into Iowa, not only because it's place he's won three times before but because it's a place where he once turned a bad season on its head.

Following his championship campaign in 2014, Hunter-Reay endured a season that was just as frustrating as this one. But once again, he found a way to persevere. He not only scored his first podium of the season at Iowa, he won. Two races later, he won again at Pocono, then finished second at the season finale in Sonoma, catapulting himself from 14th in the championship to sixth.

Was is what he wanted following a championship season? Of course not, Hunter-Reay said, but at that point it was all he had left. Sort of like this season.

He could sit around and "whine and cry about" his horrendous luck, but that's not really his style.

"You just have to pick up and move on to the next race, then the next year," Hunter-Reay said. "We’ve got a great package behind us. We’ve got a great program. That’s what keeps driving me. I’ve been in very, very difficult positions in the past in my career and in races and we’ve overcome them. Those experiences stay with you, so that's what we're going to do."

Follow IndyStar Motor Sports Insider Jim Ayello on Twitter and Instagram: @jimayello.