His status as one of the all-time open-wheel racing greats assured, Bobby Rahal these days is focused on trying to help his son, Graham, and race team Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing build similar legacies. Graham Rahal is in the midst of the best season of his career, and the race team is benefiting from one of the most buzzworthy new sponsorships of the 2015 IndyCar season: a deal with Indianapolis-based Steak ’n Shake. Rahal talks here about the challenges and the growth opportunities for IndyCar.
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We retain our people 12 months a year, and I think you have to. Is it tough to do that? Yeah, there’s a financial pressure that comes with that. But it’s just like anything else: People are the key. If you’re serious about racing and want to win championships, then that’s
part of the bill.”
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Photo by: CHRIS OWENS / IMS PHOTO
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On Letterman taking a bigger role with the team: Now that he doesn’t have the constraints of having a full-time job, which was a very demanding job — Dave was already very instrumental and played probably a greater role than ever before in helping land the Steak ’n Shake sponsorship. … He still has a lot of value and brings a lot of value to companies’ products or services, so I think every expectation is that he’s going to get more involved.
On having more manufacturers involved in IndyCar: I think Honda covered one or two more than Chevy [at the Indianapolis 500], but that’s a lot of engines to run a race, so if you have a third manufacturer, that takes some of the strain off and generates that much more interest in the sport. And anything we can do to create that is all the better.
On new sites (overseas and domestic) for events: A country in which there’s a motorsports heritage like South Africa: That seems to me to make a lot of sense. ... And the Middle East: Why not? Obviously there’s tremendous banking and financial strength there, and it’s a hot spot for the corporate world. I’d love to see us go back to Australia … but there’s a lot of places we need to be in the United States, too, that we’re not at yet. I firmly believe we should be at circuits that are relevant to what these cars are all about speed-wise, like Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca or Elkhart Lake’s Road America.
On the length of the IndyCar season: The major league sport with the shortest season is the NFL and yet it’s the biggest. So of course they’ve grown the NFL in the offseason with things like the draft and events like that. I think the problem with the short season is it just compresses things from a personnel and cost standpoint, which is very difficult. … I’d personally like to see it go past Labor Day. We used to have great crowds at Laguna Seca when you had the last race there, so maybe the TV ratings aren’t the greatest, but there’s other things to consider besides the TV ratings.
