IndyCar: Q And A With Bobby And Graham Rahal
May 07, 2008
Jim Haines / IMS
Bobby Rahal is the co-owner of Rahal Letterman Racing, which fields the No. 17 Team Ethanol car for Ryan Hunter-Reay in the IndyCar Series. The team has partnered with Chip Ganassi to also field the No. 16 car for Alex Lloyd in the 92nd Running of the Indianapolis 500. The team won the 2004 Indianapolis 500 with driver Buddy Rice.
As a driver, Rahal won the 1986 Indianapolis 500 as well as three CART championships.
Background on Graham Rahal: Graham Rahal is a rookie in the IndyCar Series, driving for Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing.
· Age: 19 (Birthday is Jan 4, 1989)
· Career Starts: 3
· Career Victories: 1
· Career Top-Five Finishes: 1
· Career Top-10 Finishes: 1
· Career Poles: 0
· Career Highlights: Finished fifth in the Champ Car World Series as a rookie in 2007. Competed in Formula BMW, Star Mazda, Champ Car Atlantic and Firestone Indy Lights from 2004-06.
· 2008 Highlights: Became the youngest winner of a major open-wheel race when he won his IndyCar Series debut at St. Petersburg. Also became only the fourth driver to win his first IndyCar Series start.
· Off the Track: Son of 1986 Indianapolis 500 winner Bobby Rahal. Graduated from high school in June 2007 with a 3.8 grade-point average.
Question: Bobby, you’re obviously a very proud father. Driver to driver, how impressed are you with Graham’s driving? Graham, are you a better driver than your dad?
BOBBY RAHAL: Well, geez, do I have to answer that question in front of him (laughter)?
When you think that he wasn’t even in a race car five years ago, and here is driving the Indy 500, he’s won an IndyCar race already, won a lot of Formula Atlantic races in a very tough field. I mean I would say this whether he was my son or not, I would say, ‘That kid can drive.’
I’m equally as impressed with the way he goes about his life. I am very proud of him because of the way he drives, the way he interacts with people, his persona. I think I’m very proud of that.
So as long as he stays the way he is, that’s going to continue. I see no reason why it wouldn’t. I think he’s going to win a lot of races. I don’t think there’s any question of that. When you look, he’s 19. I think my record, I think he’s going to blow away those records pretty easily, which I have no problem with, by the way.
GRAHAM RAHAL: Am I a better driver? I think I’d like to say yes. He’s scared to race me these days, and I think it’s probably because of his age. He knows he doesn’t stand a chance. He doesn’t like playing golf with me any more because he knows he can’t beat me.
I don’t know. The biggest thing is you’re looking at two completely different time periods. Although it’s still open-wheel racing, I believe it’s far different from when he was there, especially after the split. We all knew that period of time, it was far different. Obviously the cars are different. The concept is the same. In the IndyCar Series, especially on the ovals, the cars run a lot closer than they did in the past. It’s more of a pack-racing type series. I don’t know, he can explain the difference a little better.
I always tried to carry on the same beliefs that he had, that you’re never good enough to not drive everything that you can, whether it be sports cars, IndyCars. If I could do LeMans, I’ve done Sebring a couple times, done the 24 Hours of Daytona a few times. Not only are those things really fun for me, but to be a very accomplished driver, you have to do all of those things.
I think that’s something I’ve carried over from his time. But nowadays, you don’t see it as much because of how busy everybody is constantly, especially with this schedule. I mean, we’re on, what, eight straight weekends or something like that. There’s no time to do anything else.
