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Bobby Rahal
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Robert "Bobby" Woodward Rahal (born January 10, 1953 in Medina, Ohio) is an American auto racing team owner and former driver, spending most of his driving career in the CART open-wheel series, winning three championships there. He has won the Indianapolis 500 as both a driver and an owner.
As a driver, Rahal raced in Formula 1 and CART, including owning the team he drove for during most of his career. That team is now known as Rahal Letterman Racing.
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Encyclopedia
Robert "Bobby" Woodward Rahal (born January 10, 1953 in Medina, Ohio) is an American auto racing team owner and former driver, spending most of his driving career in the CART open-wheel series, winning three championships there. He has won the Indianapolis 500 as both a driver and an owner.
As a driver, Rahal raced in Formula 1 and CART, including owning the team he drove for during most of his career. That team is now known as Rahal Letterman Racing. After retiring as a driver, Rahal held managerial positions with the Jaguar Formula 1 team and also was an interim president of the CART series. Rahal also made one NASCAR start for the Wood Brothers.
Rahal currently lives in New Albany, Ohio.
Car owner
He is co-owner of Rahal Letterman Racing, in partnership with David Letterman, who became a minority owner in 1996. The team, originally known as Rahal-Hogan Racing, was formed, in 1992, after Rahal and partner Carl Hogan acquired the assets to the former Pat Patrick Racing team in late 1991. The name changed to Team Rahal when Hogan left to form his own team. It changed its name again to Rahal Letterman Racing in May 2004. The team won the title for Rahal in 1992, making him the last owner-driver to win the IndyCar title, and the last driver to win a race in his own car until Adrian Fernandez did so in 2003. The team was consistently successful in the series until 2003, Kenny Bräck finishing as rookie of the year in 2000 and championship runner-up in 2001. In 2003, they first entered an IRL car, and have focused on this series since 2004.
In 2000, Rahal joined the Jaguar Formula One team in a managerial capacity. During this time, Rahal attempted to hire championship-winning aerodynamicist Adrian Newey, briefly believing that the deal had been completed. However, Rahal was sacked after reportedly attempting to sell driver Eddie Irvine to rivals Jordan. Ironically, the team fired Irvine little more than a year after firing Rahal.
Rahal was the interim President and CEO of CART for six months during the 2000 season.
NSX involvement
Rahal's IndyCar team used Honda engines in the early 1990s. He was one of only three top-level race car drivers to have provided vital inputs to the Honda NSX's final development (along with McLaren-Honda Formula One driver Ayrton Senna and Japanese F1 Driver Satoru Nakajima). Rahal's NSX testing was conducted at Laguna Seca Racetrack in California, while Senna and Nakajima were called in to fine-tune the car at Suzuka Circuit in Japan, with the Japanese spending more time in the driver's seat than the Brazilian. NSX chief engineer Shigeru Uehara and his team were physically present at the track alongside Rahal to oversee and proactively fine-tune the car's handling.
Race results
Complete Formula One results
(key)
Indy 500 results
Bobby Rahal Automotive Group
The Bobby Rahal Automotive Group sells and services Honda, Acura, Toyota, Lexus, Scion, Mercedes-Benz, Volvo, Jaguar, Aston Martin, Land Rover, and BMW cars through its dealerships in western and central Pennsylvania.
Awards
Other family members in auto racing
Rahal's son, Graham Rahal, finished 2nd in the 2006 Champ Car Atlantic Championship season. After running the final two races for the Lebanon A1 Grand Prix team in the 2005-2006 season, he raced a partial season for Lebanon in the 2006-07 season. The Rahal family is of Lebanese ancestry. Graham Rahal currently races for the Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing team which recently joined the Indy Racing League due to the merger between Champ Car and the IRL. Graham, a rookie in the IRL, won the Honda Grand Prix of St Petersburg, Florida on 06 April 2008. At 19, he is the youngest driver to win an IRL race.
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