Bobby Rahal had two fears as he waited through a late-race caution at the 1986 Indianapolis 500. The first was that the race would end under caution while he still sat in second place. The second was that, even if it started back up, he’d run out of gas.
Hounded by questions about when he would finally win the Indy 500, Rahal, then-33, had his best chance yet. But his fuel light came on with 10 laps remaining, and when the green flag ended the caution with two laps to go, Rahal had no clue how much fuel was left in his tank.
What happened next remains one of the best finishes in the long history of the Indianapolis 500, which will mark is 100th running today. Rahal passed Kevin Cogan in Turn Four, then turned in what was the fastest lap in Indianapolis 500 history for his first and only win at the Brickyard.
“The first emotion I had was relief that we won the race — and I never had to answer to the press,” he said. “They were always asking, ‘Is it going to be you this year?’ or ‘When are you going to win the 500?’ ”
Thirty years later, Rahal, 63, who owns 15 car dealerships in Pennsylvania, including seven in Western Pennsylvania, reflects on how it almost never happened, how his pursuit for a more traditional career almost kept him out of the driver’s seat.
Rahal was raised in a family of racing that believed you only raced if you had a good job to afford it. His father, Mike, raced as a hobby while working as fruit and food wholesaler.
Bobby Rahal went to college at Denison University and worked at a car dealership to help fund his racing hobby.
After a particularly poor racing year, he made himself take a step back and ask if he was going to waste his life chasing a dream. At 23-years-old, Rahal took a job in Chicago at the large ad agency of Young & Rubicam. One of his accounts was IHOP. Racing seemed unrealistic.
But his friends in racing kept pestering him to stick with it. They said he’d make it if he did.
“They finally convinced me and, thankfully, I did, because otherwise I don’t know what I would have been doing,” Rahal said.
He returned to the formula circuit and made his way up to his dream of Formula One for the final two races of 1978. But that time at the top level was short lived, as he was back in Formula Two the next year. Rahal made the move to IndyCar by 1982 and finished 2nd in the standings that first season.
“In 1980 my career probably could have ended as easily as it could have gone forward,” he said. “But by 1982 the people who wouldn’t take my phone calls were all of a sudden calling me.”
Despite success as a Champ Car driver, Rahal was a disappointment in Indianapolis. Mechanical problems prevented him from finishing the race in 1982, 1983 and 1985, and he finished seventh in 1984.
So in 1986, when the race went back to green, he saw his window. When the race restarted, he kept a close eye on Cogan.
“My eyes were glued to the back of his car, so the second I saw him starting to move that I would do it as well,” Rahal said.
After overtaking Cogan on Lap 199, Rahal said he drove his car through the final lap like a jockey whipping his horse down the final stretch. He hit all four corners perfectly and averaged 209.5 mph in the final lap, almost 5 mph faster than the previous record.
Among the many things the Indy win did for Rahal’s career, it led to a relationship with Honda. Three years later, Rahal, a Medina, Ohio native, opened his first car dealership in Harrisburg. Rahal didn’t really have connections in the area, but he surrounded himself with people who did. Growth came from there, and it came throughout Pennsylvania.
The man raised to believe a business career should support driving as a hobby used his driving career to build a business. Yet his ties to racing remain strong 30 years after his major victory and 18 years after his retirement. He now co-owns Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing along with former late night host David Letterman and his 27-year-old son, Graham, is its star.
“It’s kind of like your son’s following in the family business,” Bobby Rahal said. “It’s very flattering, and I’m very proud of the job he can do and has done.”
Graham himself faces a similar pressure as his father to win the Indy 500. He told the Indianapolis Star recently that he feels his time is already running out to be at the top of IndyCar. In 2015, he made a run to win the 500 and finished fifth. This year, he feels he has a better chance to win.
“Certainly this year with the 100th running as well as 30 years on from dad, there’s a lot of history, a lot of pressure to succeed, to win,” he said. “It would be cool to carry on the tradition, for sure, and get another Rahal in victory lane here in Indy.”
Brody Miller: bmiller@post-gazette.com and Twitter @byBrodyMiller.
First Published: May 29, 2016, 4:00 a.m.
