May 7, 2024
The Making of A Champion w/ Bobby Rahal
Next Steps Forward host Chris Meek is honored to welcome legendary auto racing driver, Bobby Rahal, who most famously won the Indianapolis 500 in 1986 to the program. In an 18-year career spanning F1, Can-Am, Le Mans/IMSA and CART, Mr. Rahal’s name is widely known across the world having garnered three CART championships, along with wins at the 1981 24 Hours of Daytona and the 1987 12 Hours of Sebring endurance races. Chris is honored to know Mr. Rahal personally, having founded the nonprofit SoldierStrong which benefits greatly from Mr. Rahal’s many philanthropic efforts. Throughout the hour, Mr. Rahal will discuss his iconic career in auto racing, his role as a principal at Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing and his focus on philanthropy and bettering the communities in which his businesses serve.
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Speaker 1: [music] There are a few things that make people successful. Taking a step forward to change their lives is one successful trait, but it takes some time to get there. How do you move forward to great the success that awaits you? Welcome to Next Steps Forward with host Chris Meek. Each week, Chris brings on another guest who has successfully taken the next steps forward. Now, here is Chris Meek.
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Chris Meek: Hello, I'm Chris Meek, and you've tuned to this week's episode of Next Steps Forward. As always, it's an honour to have you with us. Today's very special guest is 1986 Indianapolis, 500 winner and three-time CART Champion Bobby Rahal. Along with former late-night talk show icon David Letterman and businessman Mike Lanigan, Bobby's a principal in Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, where he's overseen the growth of the team from a one-car program to a multi-car, multi-disciplinary organization.
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Along with his leadership of Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, he's the founder and chairman of the board of the Bobby Rahal Automotive Group, a string of car dealerships in Pennsylvania and Ohio. Bobby Rahal, welcome to the Next Steps Forward.
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Bobby Rahal: Thanks, Chris. Good to see you. Good to be with you.
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Chris: Good to see you, sir. Really appreciate your time. I know we're in racing season now so I appreciate your time away from the track.
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Bobby: My pleasure.
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Chris: Bobby, obviously racing is a huge part of your life and your very being. What got you into racing and what has kept you involved in the sport and business of it all more than 50 years later?
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Bobby: Very fortunate, my father raced in the Midwest in SCCA, which is road racing on an amateur basis. Circuits where we even race still at today, Road America, Mid-Ohio, events like that. My father raced on those circuits starting in the late '50s. I grew up out through the '60s. I was a teenager and graduated high school in 1971. Just grew up around racing as an amateur family, amateur effort on our part, but nevertheless, grew up around it, went to races, saw the greatest drivers in the world race in places like Road America, the Can-Am series, and what have you. Of course, for me it was a dream.
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Although, frankly, I never thought I had a chance because in my family, you got your education, which I did. I graduated from Denison University, and then you got a job. Hopefully, it was a good enough job that if you wanted to go racing, you could afford to buy a race car and off you go. I was fortunate that in between my sophomore and junior year, and then junior and senior years, my father had an old Lotus racing car, and he asked me if I wanted to get my amateur racing license, which of course, I jumped at and started winning some races.
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When I graduated in 1975, I thought, what's one year out of my life? Let's see how far we can go with this. That was 1975. It's been a heck of a ride since then.
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Chris: Hell of a run, Bobby. It seems like most professional race car drivers these days, and especially in the NASCAR ranks, start driving even before their teenage years. More and more are driving professionally in the top circuits by the time they're 18 and 19 years old. You mentioned how that wasn't the case back in your days, you went to college. Why has racing changed in terms of the age of drivers?
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Bobby: What created the way it was when I was coming up, obviously prior to me is that the definition of an adult was based on the voting age and the voting age prior to 1972 was 21 years old. You could not enter, the insurance companies wouldn't cover, you couldn't get licensing until you were 21. You look at, for example, Graham, he started racing IndyCars at 18. He started racing cars at 14.
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Of course, that wasn't even a concept for me. Now, in 1972, they changed the voting age to 18, and to a large degree, because of the war in Vietnam where a lot of the young soldiers going overseas in Vietnam were 21 and younger, 18, 17, 19. The idea was old enough to fight, but not old enough to vote. That got changed in '72 to 18. Of course, I started racing in '73, and I was 20 years old at that time.
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Chris: You've raced a number of different types of cars. How'd you earn your first ride in an IndyCar?
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Bobby: Interestingly, of course, my father helped me in the very beginning, but by 1975, I'd gone out and frankly sold myself to a number of companies and people. That was tough. That was a tough sell in those days because we'd just gone through the fuel crisis in '74, and in '73. It was hard to convince a company to give me money to go racing when there's lines of cars around the block waiting for a couple gallons of gasoline. One of the people that I met and befriended was a fellow named Jim Trueman.
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Jim started the Red Roof Inn hotel chain. He was based in Columbus, Ohio. I was going to school just East in Columbus at Denison University so we got to know each other. Really, every year after '75, he was a sponsor of mine to some level or another. Never all the sponsorship necessary to run, but always meaningful. We just developed a very close relationship. In 1981, at which point, frankly, my career could have maybe ended just as easily as gone forward by the end of '81. He came to me and he said, "If you're smart, you'll say yes to everything I say."
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Of course, I'd known Jim for six years by that point. Red Roof Inns was really starting to boom. He said, "I want to start an IndyCar team. I want you to drive the car. You need to help me put the team together. You need to go find people to buy the engines in the car. I'll put up the sponsorship." Boy, that was the best offer I'd ever had. At the end of 1981, I moved to Columbus, Ohio, and we began the search for personnel. I went out and found people to buy the engines and the cars. By early spring of '82, I was an IndyCar driver.
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Chris: What's that process like going out and asking people to sponsor or to buy engines and to buy cars? It's almost [unintelligible 00:07:13].
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Bobby: I went to people that I had gotten to know in other categories of racing that I'd been in. You're dealing with a friendly audience anyway, because they love racing. They're in racing themselves and sometimes it would be them and two or three other buddies would buy one engine. It wasn't easy, but as I say, you were talking to a sympathetic audience and we were able to put the ownership together I won't say easily, but in a short period of time, really.
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In about maybe five, six months, we were able to get it all done. Those guys were so critical to the success I had because we used those engines for three years. They got a percentage of prize money back. They actually earned a little bit of money through it because we had a lot of good results in those first three years. In any event, it all came together pretty quickly. As I say, it was a pretty magical time in my life.
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Chris: In general, how do you prepare for races, both mentally and physically?
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Bobby: I think racing is certainly a very physical sport. Probably, underappreciated by many who think it's like driving their streetcar, which is nothing like driving a streetcar. Mentally, I think, especially at a place like Indianapolis, the mental demands are tremendous. The physical demands are not as great at Indy as they say on a street circuit or maybe on a 1-mile oval. The mental demands are greater because you're racing for so long.
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I was the first driver to win the 500 in under three hours. Most of the time, it's over three hours long. That's a long time in a race car. Of course, you have to be concentrating 100% over the course of that race. That's whether you're in a pit stop or whether you're under yellow caution flag or whatever, you cannot really let your concentration vary.
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I think some of that comes from just starting to drive long races. You develop that ability to focus like that. I think some of it, maybe comes naturally to a degree. Physically, of course you're working out a lot. If you look at the guys that are racing in IndyCars, especially now, because those cars don't have power steering like NASCAR and Formula One has, the steering effort is very heavy. These guys, I bet you the body fat percentage is 8% or less than every driver out there. These guys are true athletes.
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At my time, it wasn't quite as demanding because we didn't have the performance like you have today but still, you had to be fit. That was so critical because if you got tired, your concentration would vary, would weaken. That's how you had accidents, is when you're not keeping your eye on the ball, as I say. It was always a case of a lot of physical training, a lot of course, just mental training, doing what you could to improve your ability to concentrate.
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Chris: I've been blessed to go to a few of your races and see Graham. To your point, Graham is a tall, lean, lanky guy, and most IndyCar drivers are like that. I'm thinking, it's hot as hell in those cars. It's hot as hell in the track. They're there, to your point, for two plus hours, two and a half hours. What do they do leading up to that race in terms of staying hydrated, in terms of having enough protein in them? What's involved in that?
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Bobby: The week before, that's all they're doing is hydrating, eating right, getting their rest, getting their sleep. To me, I always I thought it would take, four or five days in advance of the race to really get myself ready for it. That was being rested, as I said, that was eating correctly, that was, still working out, but obviously not to the point of fatiguing yourself too much.
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I used to ride bikes a lot, in the country, that's how I trained to a large degree. It's like any athletic endeavor, you have to prepare yourself for it. Unlike almost maybe every sport out there, there's no timeouts, there's no TV timeouts, there's no commercial timeouts, there's no-- As I said, even in the pit stops where your pit stop might be seven seconds, A, that's a place where you can gain positions if it's a great pit stop and you do your job as a driver. Conversely, you can lose time.
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It's not like you can go into the pit stop and daydream for a little bit and then get going. Of course, in my day, you didn't have speed limits in the pits like you have today. In Indianapolis, you're entering the pit lane at over 200 miles per hour.
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Chris: Jesus.
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Bobby: Yes, you really had to keep your wits about you.
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Chris: We talked about the physical aspect of it, but mentally, to your point, you're pulling in at 200 miles an hour, back then, but today there are speed limits, but even coming into a corner, you're a centimeter or a millimeter from hitting somebody, hitting the wall. How do you just mentally do that 200 times, well, times 4 for each corner?
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Bobby: Again, it's the discipline really. It's, everybody makes mistakes during a race. It's just the degree of the mistake, and obviously, the small, you don't want any big ones, because if you have a big mistake, usually that means you've hit the wall, you've hit somebody else, but everybody's-- You're pushing, the car and maybe you get a little bit wide in a corner and, okay, I'm not going to do that again, or no I know I can't take it that way. I have to approach the corner differently or what have you.
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It's always, and during the course of the race, it's a learning experience as well, because you are, when you, in practice and what have you, you're out there, maybe you might run 20 or 30 laps in practice at some point just to see what the car is going to be like in the race, but in the race, the race is going to be 100 laps or Indianapolis is 200 laps. You're trying to develop a car that will respond to what you want to do with it over the course of the race, because the track changes, the temperature above changes, the traction in the track changes, the line, as they say, changes.
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Every lap, you're learning something new about the track on that given moment or the car, the car's tires. Of course, the whole idea is the person who can best take advantage of everything the track can give and the car can give you, then you're going to win races.
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Chris: We've mentioned Indianapolis a few times so far. Everyone knows the Indy 500 is the pinnacle of motorsports. It's the Superbowl, if you will. What year did you first qualify for the Indy 500 and how did your rookie race go?
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Bobby: I was a rookie in '82. We qualified okay, not great, but we were a new team. Everybody on the team came from road racing. None of us had any oval track experience. We went to the first race that year at Phoenix, Arizona, and, first 1-mile oval. Man, I'd driven Grand Prix cars, Formula One cars. I'd driven Le Mans. I'd driven Can-Am cars. I'd driven a lot of fast race cars. I went to Phoenix and it's like I'd never done anything.
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This was so, you look at it, you looked at it and, hey, it's an oval, all right. There's two left corners, two left-hand corners, big deal. Then you find out that there's an art to that and there's in the way you set the car up and all this knowledge really that these veterans had was of such great value. Here I am, I was 29 years old, but, again, never having driven an oval. None of us on the team had experience with ovals. We left that race-- They caught me fire on the first pit stop, caught me on fire. That was the end of our race. We were shell-shocked when we left that race that day because it was like, oh my God, and there was going to be one more race in Atlanta Speedway and then it was Indy.
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It was like, oh my God. We came back to Columbus, Ohio and with our tails between our legs and thought, holy smokes, this is different than we thought. We didn't even go to the second race. The team manager, [unintelligible 00:16:43] Steve Horne, really made the right call and said, no, we're not going to go. We need to get our act together so when we go to Indy, we're prepared.
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We brought an engineer in, a guy by the name of Lee Dykstra, who'd been one of the top engineers in racing of all types since the '60s. He certainly taught us a lot. Of course, in the race we qualified okay. I think maybe on the ninth row or somewhere around there or eighth row. In the race, everything started to click. I was racing--
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Actually, this is the year that Gordon Johncock barely beat Rick Mears at the line. I was running fourth, I was battling Al Unser senior. I think we were fourth and fifth at the time. With 10 laps to go, my engine broke. That was that. I didn't win the rookie of the year in Indy that year. I think what happened during the race, just I clicked with the car, the race itself. I really started to feel comfortable in it. From there on out, we were pretty competitive in every race after that.
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Chris: All right. Now let's talk about your Indy 500 victory in 1986. I'm sure it's something you never get tired of talking about. I know I would. The race was supposed to be held the previous weekend but was rained out.
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Bobby: Right.
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Chris: What does a delay like that do for your nerves? Are you able to just set things aside for a week or does the pressure build up?
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Bobby: We sat there for three days, and there were times when we were in the car, getting ready to go and then it start raining again. It really was, it was like your emotions were like on a yo-yo. It was, you're up, down, up, down, up, down. I have to say, I was so relieved when the word came out. I can't tell you what might've been like a Tuesday night. The race is held on a Sunday. It might've been Tuesday night. They said, no, if that's it, we're going to delay till next weekend.
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I went back home to Columbus and I played in the Muirfield Memorial Tournament Pro-Am. That just cleared my mind. Just getting out of Indianapolis has allowed me to relax a little bit. I went back the following weekend and, I was ready to go. Of course, we were also, for those of us in the team, our mentor, the man who got us all together, Jim Trueman, had been diagnosed with colon cancer about two years previous. He was going to turn 50 years old on the original date of the race, or the 25th of May. Of course, the race is postponed and he was really in bad shape.
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He made it to the race the following weekend. Of course, all of us in the team knew that the end was near for him. I don't think any-- Nobody said, hey, we got to win this. There was no win one for the Gipper, speech, but clearly everybody knew what was at stake. We qualified fourth for that race so we were in a good spot. In the end, it was a great race. Ultimately, for much of the race, it was Rick Mears and I battling, and then Kevin Kogan came in at the end of the race, and we had to restart with two laps to go. I was able to get by Kevin, and then we set the fastest lap of the race on the last lap. A great victory for us. Bittersweet because of Jim's condition, and in fact he ended up dying about nine days later.
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Chris: Whether the race is run as scheduled or is postponed like this one, there's always pressure and anticipation. How do you channel that and turn it into an advantage rather than a liability?
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Bobby: As I said, of course, there were other races I've driven in the past where you sat around and watched it rain for two days. Of course, this is only on the ovals. On road courses, you race in the rain. Then you might get a 30-minute practice session, no qualifying, and off you go. We've done that on more than one occasion. Again, it's all about preparing yourself and putting yourself in an environment where you can really focus.
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I always like to, especially before a race, the morning of the race, I try to get by myself for 45 minutes or so and just be alone and, gather my thoughts, think about the race, obviously. Just get myself in a position, mentally that I wanted to be in before I'd walk outside and get in the car. I think that developed over time, that kind of protocol. I think, I wasn't a person who could be out glad-handing up to the last second. I was a person who could be out glad-handing up to the last second. I had to have my private time. I think, people respected that and let me have that. I think it paid off.
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Chris: When you have your private time, you said you're thinking about the race. Are you picturing yourself going through turns and in different scenarios and situations?
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Bobby: I'm more just thinking about the car, thinking about the way you last left it, the handling of it. I was never really that optimistic. In fact, I always tell people if I'm in a bad mood, that's a good sign. Any race I ever went into where I felt, oh, yes, this is going to be our race. Yes, it wasn't such a good result. Then there were some races I got into, I thought it was going to be horrible, and I ended up winning them. Now you're just thinking about, who's around you, the drivers that you've qualified with, who you can trust, who you can't, who's ultra-aggressive, who's fair.
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Most of the guys at the front of the grid are that way. They're fair. Rick Mears, I think, is one of the most fair drivers out there. Al Unser Jr. It's just, again, thinking about just the whole package and not just one individual thing.
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Chris: It's often said, excuse me, that winning the Indianapolis 500 changes a driver's life forever and I've actually heard you say that yourself.
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Bobby: Yes.
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Chris: How did it change your career and your life?
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Bobby: It's interesting. I never really aspired to the 500. Growing up, I was a sports car guy, a road racer. My hero in Indianapolis in the '60s was Jim Clark and Dan Gurney because those guys were in Formula One. They were in IndyCar. They, drove 4 GTS. They did everything. I always admired that in a driver. The drivers who could win in anything, Mario Andretti was that way. He could win in whatever the car he was in. I didn't really-- I wasn't that interested in ovals, really.
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In fact, the first time I went-- The only time I was at Indy at the Speedway was in 1964. I went with a friend of mine and his father down there to watch practice. I never, again went to that until 1982. Now, having said that, I, of course, when Jim Clark won the 500 in '65 and you had so many European drivers, Jackie Stewart and Graham Hill and others from Europe came over and were very competitive. Mark Donahue, who drove for Roger Penske. He won in '72.
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It was like, yes, I should see those road racers. They're better than all those oval track guys. I was chauvinistic, I suppose, about road racing. As I said, when I went there in '82, then you find out, holy smokes, this is a very different world. There's a lot of skill out here with these guys. I was thinking road racing was better than oval track. It was really pretty arrogant on my part. I don't know.
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As you said, I think for a driver, at least for an open wheel driver, winning Indy just changes everything. You immediately become, you have more value as a driver, financially more value. Other teams now want to be associated with you. Sponsors want to be associated with you that probably wouldn't give you the time of day, three hours earlier, right? Now they all want your name and number. I think it's, I have to say, and A.J. Foyt said it one time, and I doubted it. He said, that, winning Indy is far more meaningful than anything else you could win.
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Of course, he won it four times. I was like, oh, I don't believe that. You find out that it is true. It really creates, you really become immortal because you're always introduced. Every time I've, it's now been, what, 30, it'll be 40 years in '26, right when I won. I'm never introduced as the three-time IndyCar champion. At least at the first part of the introduction. It's always the 1986 Indy 500 champion. They don't say, oh, and he only won one race. The fact that he just won it was good.
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Then they say, oh, by the way, he did win three IndyCar championships. Which, frankly, is harder to do than winning one individual race. That's just the impact of the 500 and what it does to you and to your career. It changes your life professionally and it changes your life personally.
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Chris: I'm laughing because I think that's how I introduced you on the show. I'm 99% sure that's what I said.
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Bobby: Yes. There you go. There you go.
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Chris: Bobby, we've got a lot more to talk about in the second half of the show. We've been talking to Bobby Rahal, and we'll be right back after a short break.
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Speaker 1: You are listening to Next Steps Forward. To reach Chris Meek or his guest on the show today, please call in to 1-888-346-9141. That's 1-888-346-9141 or send an email to chris@nextstepsforward.com. Now back to this week's show.
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Chris: We are back. I'm Chris Meek, host of Next Steps Forward. My guest today is Bobby Rahal. He's a three-time IndyCar champion and a 1986 Indy 500 winner. I have to clarify that for you, Bobby.
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Bobby: I like it.
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Chris: Bobby, along with former late-night talk show icon David Letterman and businessman Mike Lanigan, Bobby's a principal in Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, where he oversees a multi-car, multi-discipline organization. Along with his leadership of Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, he is the founder and chairman of the board of the Bobby Rahal Automotive Group, a string of car dealerships in Pennsylvania and Ohio. Bobby, right before the break, we were talking about the Indy 500 and your win, and I assume that 1986 win has to be your most memorable race, but what other races stand out as favorite memories for you?
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Bobby: For sure, Indy, especially because of Jim Trueman's lack of health. This was a guy that played such a huge role in my life in racing. At times he was like a father, at times he was a friend, at times he was a mentor. He really fulfilled a lot of different roles. To see him there, and I guess the best thing that came from that also is in the end we won the race, and so he got to, I'm not sure I'd say he enjoyed it, but he got to win, and that was important to him.
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It's not often that you get the chance to win or you get the chance to realize a dream for someone else, but we did as a team, and I think that's what made it super special for us. Probably the next most, personally meaningful race for me was the 1987 Sebring 12-hour race, which is a 12-hour endurance race. My father had raced there in the late '60s, early '70s. I had been there, I was all through high school then, I'd been there and helping him.
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In '72, I went down for spring break, I crewed for a Canadian team. Sebring to me was such an amazing track, even today, Sebring is just very special to me because of that, because of that relationship with my father and what we did there. I was fortunate to win that race in 1987 with one of the factory Porsche drivers, a fellow named Jochen Mass, great guy. To win that race, again, that may not have been, now in some, particularly those who follow sports car racing and endurance racing, winning Sebring is a big deal, but in the general public, certainly not as well known as Indy.
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Yet for me, from a personal standpoint, that race was extremely, what's the word, I'm just so proud and happy that we can put that one on our resume, right? Of course, winning the Daytona 24-hour is a similar kind of feeling. I felt very fortunate that we were able to achieve that, and yes, that's probably the next most satisfying and gratifying race that I had after Indy.
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Chris: I think you're certainly the first and probably the only person to ever say to me that they've gone to Sebring for spring break to crew.
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Bobby: Yes, well, part of spring break. I still managed to get down to Lauderdale afterwards.
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Chris: All right, there you go, priorities.
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Bobby: It wasn't all work.
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Chris: All right, good. Bobby, obviously the cars have changed dramatically from the time you were driving to today, and particularly when it comes to safety. Knowing what firsthand about the Indy cars of the 1980s, would you have wanted your son, Graham, to drive one, and would you share the milestones and the safety evolution?
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Bobby: First off, I don't know if he'd fit in one of those. I was tight. I'm six feet tall. I was tight. I was probably, I might have been the tallest driver in an Indy car at the time. There was another fellow named Chris Kneipel who was 6'3 or so, but he didn't race that long in an Indy car, I think in part because he didn't fit in them. Graham's 6'3 or so, maybe even 6'4. Since my day, the cars have gotten a lot bigger inside, internally, so guys like Graham can drive them and drive them safely.
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I never had seats. I sat on the car, which probably accounts for why my back is killing me all the time and everything else, but, there were cars in 1990, the Indy car I had, if it kept going, if it kept getting smaller, it's doubtful I would have continued because I wouldn't have fit in it. Of course, in those days also, they didn't have safer walls. All the things that, I don't know if we take them for granted today, but when you look at Indy between, say, 1982 to today, it's really a different racetrack because of the safer walls, because of the strength of the race cars, the safety, the halo, the cockpit that was mandated a few years ago, which has really protected the drivers from things hitting their heads, what have you.
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Over the years has been more than a few drivers that have died because a front wheel would have hit their head. Today with the halo, that's just not possible. Of course, fire issues, you don't have those like you used to have. Racing today is thankfully so much safer than it was, and the tracks have really kept pace with that. You really got the two entities, the race cars themselves and the circuits themselves really combining to making it pretty safe. People can still get hurt, unfortunately, but I don't think that'll ever go away to a large degree. Today's a pretty good time to be a race car driver in Indy cars, especially.
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Chris: Graham's got to be 6'4". I'm 6'3" and I look up to him, so I'm getting older, not shrinking that much yet.
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Bobby: Yes, I know. I agree with you. I agree.
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Chris: On March 10th, the 2024 racing season began. Once it starts, obviously, it's hectic and nonstop as you go from track to track all across the country. I talked a little bit before the show about this. What happens during the offseason? Do you and the team members get much of a chance to close things down, rest up, relax?
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Bobby: Chris, racing is 24-7, 365. You're always doing something. You're always exploring. You're always trying to maybe break some new ground. You're always trying to find that, how do you create the edge? How do you create that one thing or maybe a couple little things that are going to make the difference? That's just time-consuming. It's the amount of effort people in racing give, off-season or off of the racing weekend, the weeks leading up, the days leading up to a race. There's still constant work going on.
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I would just say this. If you're a mechanic or whatever, you're not going to get rich on an hourly wage basis because it asks a lot of you. It asks a tremendous amount from your families. Now there's a passion. People involved in racing are in it because they have a passion for it. I think if you ask anybody in NASCAR, drag racing, Formula 1, they're in it because they love it. They're not in it because it pays the best. That drives you. It really, when you hear people saying, well, I want to thank the wives of the driver, wives of the drivers or children because they're in it whether they want to be in it and it's tough.
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It's really a tough business but the joy of winning really overcomes a lot of that. Doesn't probably do away with it all, but certainly offsets a lot of the pain. That's why, of course, in any car racing, we race 17 times a year. NASCAR guys are racing, what, 30-some times a year. It's crazy. I don't know how they do it.
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Nowadays, if you're not in the car testing, you're in the car racing. If you're not in the car racing, you're making appearances on behalf of sponsors, away from home. You're going to conventions. You're going here. You're going there. Yes, you might have 17 races, say, three days a week on average, with the exception of Indy. You're at, what, 51 plus 21, say, 72 days. Then when you start adding everything else in, more than half the year, you're gone from home and that's tough.
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Again, when you go into this world, that's part of the deal. If you don't like it, then I guess you've got to go find something else.
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Chris: I mentioned earlier, I've been fortunate to be at a few of your races and had a pretty good look at behind the scenes of what happens. There's a small army in your team, all behind the scenes, not just the pit guys, but there's people in the garage, in the shop, to your point, there's marketing, there's communications, there's sponsors, there's entertainment. How many people are involved in the organization?
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Bobby: Right now, on our IndyCar side, because as you know, we also run BMW's racing program for them here in North America. That program, we probably have, I want to say, 40 people associated with that program. IndyCar, we're around 90 people now, maybe even a little bit more. Now, we're changing the way we do some things, where now we have what I call mission control at our new headquarters in Indianapolis. We leave a number of our engineers back at the ranch, so to speak, and they're hooked up, so real-time, they're watching not just what's going on from the video, but they're getting all the data from the car, they're getting all the trackside data from the sanctioning body.
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More and more, we're able to really strengthen our engineering performance each and every weekend by having five or six people, maybe even a few more, back in the factory helping those on site, even though they may be 1,500 miles away. There's a lot, there's a lot. It's the tip of the iceberg. The tip is the crew, the driver, and then everything else you don't see, but there's a lot of people involved.
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Chris: There are a lot. A few minutes ago, we were talking about the changes of the cars, and the specs of the cars obviously change from year to year. How does the team adjust to those changes, like the new hybrid engine coming out this year, and then how do you determine whether they make your cars faster or slower before the racing season starts?
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Bobby: Theoretically, it's supposed to make it faster, and that's a matter of, okay, how much faster? We just finished a three-day test at Indy where Graham drove one day, Pietro Fittipaldi, one of our drivers, grandson of the famous Emerson Fittipaldi. He drove one day, and then Christian Lundgaard, who's driven for us the last two years, he was in the car the next day. I think we all came away feeling pretty happy about where we were because we hadn't had much time. We hadn't had any time with the hybrid system, but luckily, all the drivers have had experience with the hybrid system in other cars.
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I won't say it was easy, but these guys are pretty sophisticated. Luckily, our guys did a good job, our engineers. Because the car weighs more than it did because of all this extra equipment, and that can alter how a car handles because of the weight distribution. Our engineering guys did a great job in bringing to the track a car that was pretty much right on. Now we leave that test with a lot more knowledge and probably a little more confidence about where we are with this program than we might have had going in.
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Chris: I mentioned earlier that your team runs a multi-car, IndyCar team. Now I'm not sure what you can share with us. It might be a little inside baseball for RLL, but obviously each individual driver wants to win the race. Each team wants to win a race. Are there team strategies, individual strategies, a combination of both?
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Bobby: Certainly my view has always been, I don't have a favorite as to who wins. My favorite is for the team to win. Naturally, you'd like all four of your cars at Indy to be running one, two, three, four. Then it's up to the guys on the track. The caveat to being is don't take your teammate out. That's inexcusable. If the guy wins and you're second or you're third, you've got to still feel very good about it and your time will come.
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You can't-- You've seen it in NASCAR, you've seen it in some, even in some IndyCar events where two guys in the same team take each other out. That's the worst possible thing that can happen. I'm all for, hey, may the best man win, but he's got to do it in a clean way. You can't be taking out his or putting at risk any of his teammates.
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Chris: Spoken like a true parent, you love all your children equally.
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Bobby: Exactly. Exactly.
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Chris: Bob, you've been responsible for finding and developing some of the top young talent in open-wheel racing, including your son, Graham. Included among your proteges are Danica Patrick, two-time Indy 500 winner, Takuma Sato, 2014 Indy 500 winner, Ryan Hunter-Reay, 2004 Indy 500 winner, Buddy Rice, Bryan Herta, Max Papis, 1999 Indy 500 winner, Kenny Bräck, Jimmy Vasser, the list goes on and on and on. How do you evaluate a driver's talent and potential, and then assuming that the other team owners also see what how do you get them to sign with you?
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Bobby: I don't know if I would take credit for discovering all those people. Certainly Danica, I think, although she had been recognized by Ford at the time, she was over racing Formula Ford in England, but I met her there and I think she would even tell you that my faith in her is what gave her that shove up the ladder that she needed. There have been others that we've seen who maybe people had washed their hands of, Ryan Hunter-Reay, for example, he really kind of at the end of his rope, same thing with Buddy Rice.
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We recognized that they had a lot of talent and maybe they weren't in the right environment or the right team or what have you. Takuma, of course, Takuma was in Formula 1, he'd been in Indy cars, he drove for us in 2012, then he left, then he came back in 2018, I think it was, something like that. He ended up winning the 500 in 2020, now he's back with us again for this year. That's like, it's been an amazing relationship with Takuma.
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I love Takuma because he's just got such passion and that's what you look for. You want people who, they just have the passion. They don't want to be anywhere else, they want to be right where they are and that they'll do whatever it takes to improve themselves and to really generate the kind of commitment that not only does a team want, but they need to have in order to make it successful.
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Danica did a fantastic job for us, sorry to see her leave when she went to Andretti, but what an amazing experience that was to see her go from someone no one knew anything about to being one of the most popular athletes in the world, really, in a very short period of time. We see each other every now and then and we still, I think we still, that was a special time. In the end, it's all about commitment, it's all about desire, all those kinds of things that you have to have to succeed as a driver because, to be honest, you're going to be unsuccessful a lot more than you're going to be successful.
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It's how do you react to that and how do you respond? Do you skulk away and feel sorry for yourself or you just become more determined that that's not going to happen the next time or you're going to improve yourself and that's what you're looking for. You're really looking for people who will do whatever it takes to get to the top.
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Chris: In addition to your son, Graham, this year's Rahal Letterman Lanigan team has some young but very seasoned talent. You mentioned Christian Lundgaard before, Pietro Fittipaldi. Christian will be starting his third full season in IndyCar. Pietro actually had six IndyCar starts in 2018 and Graham will be starting his 19th year behind the wheel of an IndyCar. Makes him like the grandfather of Indy right now, I think.
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Bobby: Yes, pretty much.
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Chris: Don't tell him I said that, though.
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Bobby: There are older drivers, but not many. I think Dixon has been around a lot longer. Of course, Tony Kanaan, although I think he retired this last-- There's a few-- Will Power, but, when you start at 18, that's--
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Chris: Sneaks up on you.
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Bobby: Yes, you can do a lot of races in 17 years.
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Chris: What are your expectations for each of them this year and for the team as a whole?
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Bobby: As you know, last year, it was not a-- We had a very good second half of the year last year, but our first half was not so good. Of course, the lowlight of that period was Graham not qualifying at Indy. In the end, he was able to get a ride with Dennis Reinbold, a good friend. Unfortunately, we had problems, couldn't start before the race, so anyway. For him not to qualify, this is a guy who was on track to win the 500 three years ago and has always been pretty competitive there.
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Of course the other two guys, both Jack Harvey and Christian didn't have really strong cars. As a team we let those guys down. A year ago, the day after the race, I went to our management and I said, in 30 days I want the plan, what I call the Indy recovery plan, what are we going to do to not just be able to qualify but to qualify up front. Because we have the drivers that can do that. We've been going through that process since then and I think there's really good reason to believe we'll be very competitive this year.
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The kind of talent that we have, even in 2018, Pietro, who was very young at the time, he qualified like 11th or something like that, or 12th. Very good performance on an oval. Christian, no question Christian can run up front. At Indy, it's so dependent on the car. The car really has to be right for a driver to really shine there. We fully expect to have cars that will allow our drivers to shine in 2024.
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Chris: We were talking about this before the show, your commitment to charitable causes is second to none. Full disclosure for audience, you, the Bobby Rahal Automotive Group, RLL Racing, and the Graham & Courtney Rahal Foundation have been very supportive of a non-profit I co-founded, Soldier Strong. Bobby, through your auto dealerships alone, you host more than 75 charitable events each year and have donated well over $1 million to many worthy community causes. Near and dear to Soldier Strong is your relationship with United Rentals and the creation of Turns for Troops. Would you talk about both of them, United Rentals and Turns for Troops, please?
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Bobby: Great company, United Rentals. Fortunate to be introduced to them through Mike Lanigan. Just great people, great company, really great company. I think we just, I think in our case, in Graham's case, really a great relationship between all three entities, especially between Graham and United Rentals. Of course his support, their support of Soldier Strong has been tremendous. I think as an individual, especially if you've had success, that there's a lot of people out there that haven't been lucky or haven't had the opportunity or, need that hand to help them up.
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I've always felt, for many years that you have an obligation to do that, to help people. I know Graham-- One of the things I'm most proud of Graham is his charitable commitment, his efforts on behalf of not just Soldier Strong but other charities. Soldier Strong, I think, certainly would be the biggest one. Yes, some of that's through United Rentals, some of it's through he's got a golf tournament before Indy, as you know, that generates a fair amount of money for Soldier Strong, as well as One Cure, which is our other charity that we back on a yearly basis.
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I just think that's a must do is to have that commitment to organizations that are out there helping people who need help. Of course, as you well know, seeing Sergeant Dan stand up, a veteran paralyzed in Afghanistan, and then thanks to your efforts and Soldier Strong as a whole, to see him get in the exoskeleton and walk across 50 feet, 100 feet across the stage or stand for the national anthem, at the start of the Indy 500, that's pretty amazing and pretty special. It just makes you convinced that you're doing the right thing.
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Chris: Graham had two great teachers, both with you and a former neighbor of mine, Paul Newman, to learn from the best. Graham always references Paul Newman's book. I just appreciate what he learned from him and that the legacy he passes on. Bobby Rahal, it was an absolute honor to have you with us today. Really appreciate your time. I know how busy you are so it was great catching up and great seeing you.
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Bobby: Thank you, Chris.
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Chris: Thank you so much for our audience for being with us today, which now includes people in over 50 countries. Join us for another episode of Next Steps Forward. More details and upcoming shows and guests, please follow me on Facebook at facebook.com/chrismeekpublicfigure and on X at @ChrisMeek_USA. We'll be back next Tuesday, same time, same place with another leader from the world of business, politics, public policy, sports, entertainment. Until then, stay safe and keep taking your next steps forward.
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Speaker 1: Thanks for tuning in to Next Steps Forward. Be sure to join Chris Meek for another great show next Tuesday at 10:00 AM Pacific Time and 1:00 PM Eastern Time on The Voice America Empowerment Channel. This week, make things happen in your life.
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[music]
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Speaker 1: [music] There are a few things that make people successful. Taking a step forward to change their lives is one successful trait, but it takes some time to get there. How do you move forward to great the success that awaits you? Welcome to Next Steps Forward with host Chris Meek. Each week, Chris brings on another guest who has successfully taken the next steps forward. Now, here is Chris Meek.
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Chris Meek: Hello, I'm Chris Meek, and you've tuned to this week's episode of Next Steps Forward. As always, it's an honour to have you with us. Today's very special guest is 1986 Indianapolis, 500 winner and three-time CART Champion Bobby Rahal. Along with former late-night talk show icon David Letterman and businessman Mike Lanigan, Bobby's a principal in Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, where he's overseen the growth of the team from a one-car program to a multi-car, multi-disciplinary organization.
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Along with his leadership of Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, he's the founder and chairman of the board of the Bobby Rahal Automotive Group, a string of car dealerships in Pennsylvania and Ohio. Bobby Rahal, welcome to the Next Steps Forward.
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Bobby Rahal: Thanks, Chris. Good to see you. Good to be with you.
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Chris: Good to see you, sir. Really appreciate your time. I know we're in racing season now so I appreciate your time away from the track.
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Bobby: My pleasure.
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Chris: Bobby, obviously racing is a huge part of your life and your very being. What got you into racing and what has kept you involved in the sport and business of it all more than 50 years later?
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Bobby: Very fortunate, my father raced in the Midwest in SCCA, which is road racing on an amateur basis. Circuits where we even race still at today, Road America, Mid-Ohio, events like that. My father raced on those circuits starting in the late '50s. I grew up out through the '60s. I was a teenager and graduated high school in 1971. Just grew up around racing as an amateur family, amateur effort on our part, but nevertheless, grew up around it, went to races, saw the greatest drivers in the world race in places like Road America, the Can-Am series, and what have you. Of course, for me it was a dream.
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Although, frankly, I never thought I had a chance because in my family, you got your education, which I did. I graduated from Denison University, and then you got a job. Hopefully, it was a good enough job that if you wanted to go racing, you could afford to buy a race car and off you go. I was fortunate that in between my sophomore and junior year, and then junior and senior years, my father had an old Lotus racing car, and he asked me if I wanted to get my amateur racing license, which of course, I jumped at and started winning some races.
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When I graduated in 1975, I thought, what's one year out of my life? Let's see how far we can go with this. That was 1975. It's been a heck of a ride since then.
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Chris: Hell of a run, Bobby. It seems like most professional race car drivers these days, and especially in the NASCAR ranks, start driving even before their teenage years. More and more are driving professionally in the top circuits by the time they're 18 and 19 years old. You mentioned how that wasn't the case back in your days, you went to college. Why has racing changed in terms of the age of drivers?
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Bobby: What created the way it was when I was coming up, obviously prior to me is that the definition of an adult was based on the voting age and the voting age prior to 1972 was 21 years old. You could not enter, the insurance companies wouldn't cover, you couldn't get licensing until you were 21. You look at, for example, Graham, he started racing IndyCars at 18. He started racing cars at 14.
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Of course, that wasn't even a concept for me. Now, in 1972, they changed the voting age to 18, and to a large degree, because of the war in Vietnam where a lot of the young soldiers going overseas in Vietnam were 21 and younger, 18, 17, 19. The idea was old enough to fight, but not old enough to vote. That got changed in '72 to 18. Of course, I started racing in '73, and I was 20 years old at that time.
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Chris: You've raced a number of different types of cars. How'd you earn your first ride in an IndyCar?
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Bobby: Interestingly, of course, my father helped me in the very beginning, but by 1975, I'd gone out and frankly sold myself to a number of companies and people. That was tough. That was a tough sell in those days because we'd just gone through the fuel crisis in '74, and in '73. It was hard to convince a company to give me money to go racing when there's lines of cars around the block waiting for a couple gallons of gasoline. One of the people that I met and befriended was a fellow named Jim Trueman.
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Jim started the Red Roof Inn hotel chain. He was based in Columbus, Ohio. I was going to school just East in Columbus at Denison University so we got to know each other. Really, every year after '75, he was a sponsor of mine to some level or another. Never all the sponsorship necessary to run, but always meaningful. We just developed a very close relationship. In 1981, at which point, frankly, my career could have maybe ended just as easily as gone forward by the end of '81. He came to me and he said, "If you're smart, you'll say yes to everything I say."
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Of course, I'd known Jim for six years by that point. Red Roof Inns was really starting to boom. He said, "I want to start an IndyCar team. I want you to drive the car. You need to help me put the team together. You need to go find people to buy the engines in the car. I'll put up the sponsorship." Boy, that was the best offer I'd ever had. At the end of 1981, I moved to Columbus, Ohio, and we began the search for personnel. I went out and found people to buy the engines and the cars. By early spring of '82, I was an IndyCar driver.
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Chris: What's that process like going out and asking people to sponsor or to buy engines and to buy cars? It's almost [unintelligible 00:07:13].
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Bobby: I went to people that I had gotten to know in other categories of racing that I'd been in. You're dealing with a friendly audience anyway, because they love racing. They're in racing themselves and sometimes it would be them and two or three other buddies would buy one engine. It wasn't easy, but as I say, you were talking to a sympathetic audience and we were able to put the ownership together I won't say easily, but in a short period of time, really.
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In about maybe five, six months, we were able to get it all done. Those guys were so critical to the success I had because we used those engines for three years. They got a percentage of prize money back. They actually earned a little bit of money through it because we had a lot of good results in those first three years. In any event, it all came together pretty quickly. As I say, it was a pretty magical time in my life.
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Chris: In general, how do you prepare for races, both mentally and physically?
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Bobby: I think racing is certainly a very physical sport. Probably, underappreciated by many who think it's like driving their streetcar, which is nothing like driving a streetcar. Mentally, I think, especially at a place like Indianapolis, the mental demands are tremendous. The physical demands are not as great at Indy as they say on a street circuit or maybe on a 1-mile oval. The mental demands are greater because you're racing for so long.
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I was the first driver to win the 500 in under three hours. Most of the time, it's over three hours long. That's a long time in a race car. Of course, you have to be concentrating 100% over the course of that race. That's whether you're in a pit stop or whether you're under yellow caution flag or whatever, you cannot really let your concentration vary.
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I think some of that comes from just starting to drive long races. You develop that ability to focus like that. I think some of it, maybe comes naturally to a degree. Physically, of course you're working out a lot. If you look at the guys that are racing in IndyCars, especially now, because those cars don't have power steering like NASCAR and Formula One has, the steering effort is very heavy. These guys, I bet you the body fat percentage is 8% or less than every driver out there. These guys are true athletes.
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At my time, it wasn't quite as demanding because we didn't have the performance like you have today but still, you had to be fit. That was so critical because if you got tired, your concentration would vary, would weaken. That's how you had accidents, is when you're not keeping your eye on the ball, as I say. It was always a case of a lot of physical training, a lot of course, just mental training, doing what you could to improve your ability to concentrate.
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Chris: I've been blessed to go to a few of your races and see Graham. To your point, Graham is a tall, lean, lanky guy, and most IndyCar drivers are like that. I'm thinking, it's hot as hell in those cars. It's hot as hell in the track. They're there, to your point, for two plus hours, two and a half hours. What do they do leading up to that race in terms of staying hydrated, in terms of having enough protein in them? What's involved in that?
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Bobby: The week before, that's all they're doing is hydrating, eating right, getting their rest, getting their sleep. To me, I always I thought it would take, four or five days in advance of the race to really get myself ready for it. That was being rested, as I said, that was eating correctly, that was, still working out, but obviously not to the point of fatiguing yourself too much.
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I used to ride bikes a lot, in the country, that's how I trained to a large degree. It's like any athletic endeavor, you have to prepare yourself for it. Unlike almost maybe every sport out there, there's no timeouts, there's no TV timeouts, there's no commercial timeouts, there's no-- As I said, even in the pit stops where your pit stop might be seven seconds, A, that's a place where you can gain positions if it's a great pit stop and you do your job as a driver. Conversely, you can lose time.
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It's not like you can go into the pit stop and daydream for a little bit and then get going. Of course, in my day, you didn't have speed limits in the pits like you have today. In Indianapolis, you're entering the pit lane at over 200 miles per hour.
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Chris: Jesus.
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Bobby: Yes, you really had to keep your wits about you.
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Chris: We talked about the physical aspect of it, but mentally, to your point, you're pulling in at 200 miles an hour, back then, but today there are speed limits, but even coming into a corner, you're a centimeter or a millimeter from hitting somebody, hitting the wall. How do you just mentally do that 200 times, well, times 4 for each corner?
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Bobby: Again, it's the discipline really. It's, everybody makes mistakes during a race. It's just the degree of the mistake, and obviously, the small, you don't want any big ones, because if you have a big mistake, usually that means you've hit the wall, you've hit somebody else, but everybody's-- You're pushing, the car and maybe you get a little bit wide in a corner and, okay, I'm not going to do that again, or no I know I can't take it that way. I have to approach the corner differently or what have you.
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It's always, and during the course of the race, it's a learning experience as well, because you are, when you, in practice and what have you, you're out there, maybe you might run 20 or 30 laps in practice at some point just to see what the car is going to be like in the race, but in the race, the race is going to be 100 laps or Indianapolis is 200 laps. You're trying to develop a car that will respond to what you want to do with it over the course of the race, because the track changes, the temperature above changes, the traction in the track changes, the line, as they say, changes.
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Every lap, you're learning something new about the track on that given moment or the car, the car's tires. Of course, the whole idea is the person who can best take advantage of everything the track can give and the car can give you, then you're going to win races.
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Chris: We've mentioned Indianapolis a few times so far. Everyone knows the Indy 500 is the pinnacle of motorsports. It's the Superbowl, if you will. What year did you first qualify for the Indy 500 and how did your rookie race go?
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Bobby: I was a rookie in '82. We qualified okay, not great, but we were a new team. Everybody on the team came from road racing. None of us had any oval track experience. We went to the first race that year at Phoenix, Arizona, and, first 1-mile oval. Man, I'd driven Grand Prix cars, Formula One cars. I'd driven Le Mans. I'd driven Can-Am cars. I'd driven a lot of fast race cars. I went to Phoenix and it's like I'd never done anything.
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This was so, you look at it, you looked at it and, hey, it's an oval, all right. There's two left corners, two left-hand corners, big deal. Then you find out that there's an art to that and there's in the way you set the car up and all this knowledge really that these veterans had was of such great value. Here I am, I was 29 years old, but, again, never having driven an oval. None of us on the team had experience with ovals. We left that race-- They caught me fire on the first pit stop, caught me on fire. That was the end of our race. We were shell-shocked when we left that race that day because it was like, oh my God, and there was going to be one more race in Atlanta Speedway and then it was Indy.
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It was like, oh my God. We came back to Columbus, Ohio and with our tails between our legs and thought, holy smokes, this is different than we thought. We didn't even go to the second race. The team manager, [unintelligible 00:16:43] Steve Horne, really made the right call and said, no, we're not going to go. We need to get our act together so when we go to Indy, we're prepared.
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We brought an engineer in, a guy by the name of Lee Dykstra, who'd been one of the top engineers in racing of all types since the '60s. He certainly taught us a lot. Of course, in the race we qualified okay. I think maybe on the ninth row or somewhere around there or eighth row. In the race, everything started to click. I was racing--
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Actually, this is the year that Gordon Johncock barely beat Rick Mears at the line. I was running fourth, I was battling Al Unser senior. I think we were fourth and fifth at the time. With 10 laps to go, my engine broke. That was that. I didn't win the rookie of the year in Indy that year. I think what happened during the race, just I clicked with the car, the race itself. I really started to feel comfortable in it. From there on out, we were pretty competitive in every race after that.
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Chris: All right. Now let's talk about your Indy 500 victory in 1986. I'm sure it's something you never get tired of talking about. I know I would. The race was supposed to be held the previous weekend but was rained out.
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Bobby: Right.
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Chris: What does a delay like that do for your nerves? Are you able to just set things aside for a week or does the pressure build up?
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Bobby: We sat there for three days, and there were times when we were in the car, getting ready to go and then it start raining again. It really was, it was like your emotions were like on a yo-yo. It was, you're up, down, up, down, up, down. I have to say, I was so relieved when the word came out. I can't tell you what might've been like a Tuesday night. The race is held on a Sunday. It might've been Tuesday night. They said, no, if that's it, we're going to delay till next weekend.
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I went back home to Columbus and I played in the Muirfield Memorial Tournament Pro-Am. That just cleared my mind. Just getting out of Indianapolis has allowed me to relax a little bit. I went back the following weekend and, I was ready to go. Of course, we were also, for those of us in the team, our mentor, the man who got us all together, Jim Trueman, had been diagnosed with colon cancer about two years previous. He was going to turn 50 years old on the original date of the race, or the 25th of May. Of course, the race is postponed and he was really in bad shape.
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He made it to the race the following weekend. Of course, all of us in the team knew that the end was near for him. I don't think any-- Nobody said, hey, we got to win this. There was no win one for the Gipper, speech, but clearly everybody knew what was at stake. We qualified fourth for that race so we were in a good spot. In the end, it was a great race. Ultimately, for much of the race, it was Rick Mears and I battling, and then Kevin Kogan came in at the end of the race, and we had to restart with two laps to go. I was able to get by Kevin, and then we set the fastest lap of the race on the last lap. A great victory for us. Bittersweet because of Jim's condition, and in fact he ended up dying about nine days later.
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Chris: Whether the race is run as scheduled or is postponed like this one, there's always pressure and anticipation. How do you channel that and turn it into an advantage rather than a liability?
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Bobby: As I said, of course, there were other races I've driven in the past where you sat around and watched it rain for two days. Of course, this is only on the ovals. On road courses, you race in the rain. Then you might get a 30-minute practice session, no qualifying, and off you go. We've done that on more than one occasion. Again, it's all about preparing yourself and putting yourself in an environment where you can really focus.
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I always like to, especially before a race, the morning of the race, I try to get by myself for 45 minutes or so and just be alone and, gather my thoughts, think about the race, obviously. Just get myself in a position, mentally that I wanted to be in before I'd walk outside and get in the car. I think that developed over time, that kind of protocol. I think, I wasn't a person who could be out glad-handing up to the last second. I was a person who could be out glad-handing up to the last second. I had to have my private time. I think, people respected that and let me have that. I think it paid off.
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Chris: When you have your private time, you said you're thinking about the race. Are you picturing yourself going through turns and in different scenarios and situations?
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Bobby: I'm more just thinking about the car, thinking about the way you last left it, the handling of it. I was never really that optimistic. In fact, I always tell people if I'm in a bad mood, that's a good sign. Any race I ever went into where I felt, oh, yes, this is going to be our race. Yes, it wasn't such a good result. Then there were some races I got into, I thought it was going to be horrible, and I ended up winning them. Now you're just thinking about, who's around you, the drivers that you've qualified with, who you can trust, who you can't, who's ultra-aggressive, who's fair.
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Most of the guys at the front of the grid are that way. They're fair. Rick Mears, I think, is one of the most fair drivers out there. Al Unser Jr. It's just, again, thinking about just the whole package and not just one individual thing.
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Chris: It's often said, excuse me, that winning the Indianapolis 500 changes a driver's life forever and I've actually heard you say that yourself.
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Bobby: Yes.
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Chris: How did it change your career and your life?
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Bobby: It's interesting. I never really aspired to the 500. Growing up, I was a sports car guy, a road racer. My hero in Indianapolis in the '60s was Jim Clark and Dan Gurney because those guys were in Formula One. They were in IndyCar. They, drove 4 GTS. They did everything. I always admired that in a driver. The drivers who could win in anything, Mario Andretti was that way. He could win in whatever the car he was in. I didn't really-- I wasn't that interested in ovals, really.
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In fact, the first time I went-- The only time I was at Indy at the Speedway was in 1964. I went with a friend of mine and his father down there to watch practice. I never, again went to that until 1982. Now, having said that, I, of course, when Jim Clark won the 500 in '65 and you had so many European drivers, Jackie Stewart and Graham Hill and others from Europe came over and were very competitive. Mark Donahue, who drove for Roger Penske. He won in '72.
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It was like, yes, I should see those road racers. They're better than all those oval track guys. I was chauvinistic, I suppose, about road racing. As I said, when I went there in '82, then you find out, holy smokes, this is a very different world. There's a lot of skill out here with these guys. I was thinking road racing was better than oval track. It was really pretty arrogant on my part. I don't know.
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As you said, I think for a driver, at least for an open wheel driver, winning Indy just changes everything. You immediately become, you have more value as a driver, financially more value. Other teams now want to be associated with you. Sponsors want to be associated with you that probably wouldn't give you the time of day, three hours earlier, right? Now they all want your name and number. I think it's, I have to say, and A.J. Foyt said it one time, and I doubted it. He said, that, winning Indy is far more meaningful than anything else you could win.
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Of course, he won it four times. I was like, oh, I don't believe that. You find out that it is true. It really creates, you really become immortal because you're always introduced. Every time I've, it's now been, what, 30, it'll be 40 years in '26, right when I won. I'm never introduced as the three-time IndyCar champion. At least at the first part of the introduction. It's always the 1986 Indy 500 champion. They don't say, oh, and he only won one race. The fact that he just won it was good.
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Then they say, oh, by the way, he did win three IndyCar championships. Which, frankly, is harder to do than winning one individual race. That's just the impact of the 500 and what it does to you and to your career. It changes your life professionally and it changes your life personally.
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Chris: I'm laughing because I think that's how I introduced you on the show. I'm 99% sure that's what I said.
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Bobby: Yes. There you go. There you go.
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Chris: Bobby, we've got a lot more to talk about in the second half of the show. We've been talking to Bobby Rahal, and we'll be right back after a short break.
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Speaker 1: You are listening to Next Steps Forward. To reach Chris Meek or his guest on the show today, please call in to 1-888-346-9141. That's 1-888-346-9141 or send an email to chris@nextstepsforward.com. Now back to this week's show.
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Chris: We are back. I'm Chris Meek, host of Next Steps Forward. My guest today is Bobby Rahal. He's a three-time IndyCar champion and a 1986 Indy 500 winner. I have to clarify that for you, Bobby.
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Bobby: I like it.
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Chris: Bobby, along with former late-night talk show icon David Letterman and businessman Mike Lanigan, Bobby's a principal in Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, where he oversees a multi-car, multi-discipline organization. Along with his leadership of Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, he is the founder and chairman of the board of the Bobby Rahal Automotive Group, a string of car dealerships in Pennsylvania and Ohio. Bobby, right before the break, we were talking about the Indy 500 and your win, and I assume that 1986 win has to be your most memorable race, but what other races stand out as favorite memories for you?
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Bobby: For sure, Indy, especially because of Jim Trueman's lack of health. This was a guy that played such a huge role in my life in racing. At times he was like a father, at times he was a friend, at times he was a mentor. He really fulfilled a lot of different roles. To see him there, and I guess the best thing that came from that also is in the end we won the race, and so he got to, I'm not sure I'd say he enjoyed it, but he got to win, and that was important to him.
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It's not often that you get the chance to win or you get the chance to realize a dream for someone else, but we did as a team, and I think that's what made it super special for us. Probably the next most, personally meaningful race for me was the 1987 Sebring 12-hour race, which is a 12-hour endurance race. My father had raced there in the late '60s, early '70s. I had been there, I was all through high school then, I'd been there and helping him.
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In '72, I went down for spring break, I crewed for a Canadian team. Sebring to me was such an amazing track, even today, Sebring is just very special to me because of that, because of that relationship with my father and what we did there. I was fortunate to win that race in 1987 with one of the factory Porsche drivers, a fellow named Jochen Mass, great guy. To win that race, again, that may not have been, now in some, particularly those who follow sports car racing and endurance racing, winning Sebring is a big deal, but in the general public, certainly not as well known as Indy.
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Yet for me, from a personal standpoint, that race was extremely, what's the word, I'm just so proud and happy that we can put that one on our resume, right? Of course, winning the Daytona 24-hour is a similar kind of feeling. I felt very fortunate that we were able to achieve that, and yes, that's probably the next most satisfying and gratifying race that I had after Indy.
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Chris: I think you're certainly the first and probably the only person to ever say to me that they've gone to Sebring for spring break to crew.
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Bobby: Yes, well, part of spring break. I still managed to get down to Lauderdale afterwards.
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Chris: All right, there you go, priorities.
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Bobby: It wasn't all work.
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Chris: All right, good. Bobby, obviously the cars have changed dramatically from the time you were driving to today, and particularly when it comes to safety. Knowing what firsthand about the Indy cars of the 1980s, would you have wanted your son, Graham, to drive one, and would you share the milestones and the safety evolution?
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Bobby: First off, I don't know if he'd fit in one of those. I was tight. I'm six feet tall. I was tight. I was probably, I might have been the tallest driver in an Indy car at the time. There was another fellow named Chris Kneipel who was 6'3 or so, but he didn't race that long in an Indy car, I think in part because he didn't fit in them. Graham's 6'3 or so, maybe even 6'4. Since my day, the cars have gotten a lot bigger inside, internally, so guys like Graham can drive them and drive them safely.
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I never had seats. I sat on the car, which probably accounts for why my back is killing me all the time and everything else, but, there were cars in 1990, the Indy car I had, if it kept going, if it kept getting smaller, it's doubtful I would have continued because I wouldn't have fit in it. Of course, in those days also, they didn't have safer walls. All the things that, I don't know if we take them for granted today, but when you look at Indy between, say, 1982 to today, it's really a different racetrack because of the safer walls, because of the strength of the race cars, the safety, the halo, the cockpit that was mandated a few years ago, which has really protected the drivers from things hitting their heads, what have you.
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Over the years has been more than a few drivers that have died because a front wheel would have hit their head. Today with the halo, that's just not possible. Of course, fire issues, you don't have those like you used to have. Racing today is thankfully so much safer than it was, and the tracks have really kept pace with that. You really got the two entities, the race cars themselves and the circuits themselves really combining to making it pretty safe. People can still get hurt, unfortunately, but I don't think that'll ever go away to a large degree. Today's a pretty good time to be a race car driver in Indy cars, especially.
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Chris: Graham's got to be 6'4". I'm 6'3" and I look up to him, so I'm getting older, not shrinking that much yet.
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Bobby: Yes, I know. I agree with you. I agree.
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Chris: On March 10th, the 2024 racing season began. Once it starts, obviously, it's hectic and nonstop as you go from track to track all across the country. I talked a little bit before the show about this. What happens during the offseason? Do you and the team members get much of a chance to close things down, rest up, relax?
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Bobby: Chris, racing is 24-7, 365. You're always doing something. You're always exploring. You're always trying to maybe break some new ground. You're always trying to find that, how do you create the edge? How do you create that one thing or maybe a couple little things that are going to make the difference? That's just time-consuming. It's the amount of effort people in racing give, off-season or off of the racing weekend, the weeks leading up, the days leading up to a race. There's still constant work going on.
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I would just say this. If you're a mechanic or whatever, you're not going to get rich on an hourly wage basis because it asks a lot of you. It asks a tremendous amount from your families. Now there's a passion. People involved in racing are in it because they have a passion for it. I think if you ask anybody in NASCAR, drag racing, Formula 1, they're in it because they love it. They're not in it because it pays the best. That drives you. It really, when you hear people saying, well, I want to thank the wives of the driver, wives of the drivers or children because they're in it whether they want to be in it and it's tough.
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It's really a tough business but the joy of winning really overcomes a lot of that. Doesn't probably do away with it all, but certainly offsets a lot of the pain. That's why, of course, in any car racing, we race 17 times a year. NASCAR guys are racing, what, 30-some times a year. It's crazy. I don't know how they do it.
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Nowadays, if you're not in the car testing, you're in the car racing. If you're not in the car racing, you're making appearances on behalf of sponsors, away from home. You're going to conventions. You're going here. You're going there. Yes, you might have 17 races, say, three days a week on average, with the exception of Indy. You're at, what, 51 plus 21, say, 72 days. Then when you start adding everything else in, more than half the year, you're gone from home and that's tough.
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Again, when you go into this world, that's part of the deal. If you don't like it, then I guess you've got to go find something else.
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Chris: I mentioned earlier, I've been fortunate to be at a few of your races and had a pretty good look at behind the scenes of what happens. There's a small army in your team, all behind the scenes, not just the pit guys, but there's people in the garage, in the shop, to your point, there's marketing, there's communications, there's sponsors, there's entertainment. How many people are involved in the organization?
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Bobby: Right now, on our IndyCar side, because as you know, we also run BMW's racing program for them here in North America. That program, we probably have, I want to say, 40 people associated with that program. IndyCar, we're around 90 people now, maybe even a little bit more. Now, we're changing the way we do some things, where now we have what I call mission control at our new headquarters in Indianapolis. We leave a number of our engineers back at the ranch, so to speak, and they're hooked up, so real-time, they're watching not just what's going on from the video, but they're getting all the data from the car, they're getting all the trackside data from the sanctioning body.
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More and more, we're able to really strengthen our engineering performance each and every weekend by having five or six people, maybe even a few more, back in the factory helping those on site, even though they may be 1,500 miles away. There's a lot, there's a lot. It's the tip of the iceberg. The tip is the crew, the driver, and then everything else you don't see, but there's a lot of people involved.
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Chris: There are a lot. A few minutes ago, we were talking about the changes of the cars, and the specs of the cars obviously change from year to year. How does the team adjust to those changes, like the new hybrid engine coming out this year, and then how do you determine whether they make your cars faster or slower before the racing season starts?
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Bobby: Theoretically, it's supposed to make it faster, and that's a matter of, okay, how much faster? We just finished a three-day test at Indy where Graham drove one day, Pietro Fittipaldi, one of our drivers, grandson of the famous Emerson Fittipaldi. He drove one day, and then Christian Lundgaard, who's driven for us the last two years, he was in the car the next day. I think we all came away feeling pretty happy about where we were because we hadn't had much time. We hadn't had any time with the hybrid system, but luckily, all the drivers have had experience with the hybrid system in other cars.
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I won't say it was easy, but these guys are pretty sophisticated. Luckily, our guys did a good job, our engineers. Because the car weighs more than it did because of all this extra equipment, and that can alter how a car handles because of the weight distribution. Our engineering guys did a great job in bringing to the track a car that was pretty much right on. Now we leave that test with a lot more knowledge and probably a little more confidence about where we are with this program than we might have had going in.
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Chris: I mentioned earlier that your team runs a multi-car, IndyCar team. Now I'm not sure what you can share with us. It might be a little inside baseball for RLL, but obviously each individual driver wants to win the race. Each team wants to win a race. Are there team strategies, individual strategies, a combination of both?
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Bobby: Certainly my view has always been, I don't have a favorite as to who wins. My favorite is for the team to win. Naturally, you'd like all four of your cars at Indy to be running one, two, three, four. Then it's up to the guys on the track. The caveat to being is don't take your teammate out. That's inexcusable. If the guy wins and you're second or you're third, you've got to still feel very good about it and your time will come.
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You can't-- You've seen it in NASCAR, you've seen it in some, even in some IndyCar events where two guys in the same team take each other out. That's the worst possible thing that can happen. I'm all for, hey, may the best man win, but he's got to do it in a clean way. You can't be taking out his or putting at risk any of his teammates.
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Chris: Spoken like a true parent, you love all your children equally.
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Bobby: Exactly. Exactly.
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Chris: Bob, you've been responsible for finding and developing some of the top young talent in open-wheel racing, including your son, Graham. Included among your proteges are Danica Patrick, two-time Indy 500 winner, Takuma Sato, 2014 Indy 500 winner, Ryan Hunter-Reay, 2004 Indy 500 winner, Buddy Rice, Bryan Herta, Max Papis, 1999 Indy 500 winner, Kenny Bräck, Jimmy Vasser, the list goes on and on and on. How do you evaluate a driver's talent and potential, and then assuming that the other team owners also see what how do you get them to sign with you?
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Bobby: I don't know if I would take credit for discovering all those people. Certainly Danica, I think, although she had been recognized by Ford at the time, she was over racing Formula Ford in England, but I met her there and I think she would even tell you that my faith in her is what gave her that shove up the ladder that she needed. There have been others that we've seen who maybe people had washed their hands of, Ryan Hunter-Reay, for example, he really kind of at the end of his rope, same thing with Buddy Rice.
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We recognized that they had a lot of talent and maybe they weren't in the right environment or the right team or what have you. Takuma, of course, Takuma was in Formula 1, he'd been in Indy cars, he drove for us in 2012, then he left, then he came back in 2018, I think it was, something like that. He ended up winning the 500 in 2020, now he's back with us again for this year. That's like, it's been an amazing relationship with Takuma.
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I love Takuma because he's just got such passion and that's what you look for. You want people who, they just have the passion. They don't want to be anywhere else, they want to be right where they are and that they'll do whatever it takes to improve themselves and to really generate the kind of commitment that not only does a team want, but they need to have in order to make it successful.
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Danica did a fantastic job for us, sorry to see her leave when she went to Andretti, but what an amazing experience that was to see her go from someone no one knew anything about to being one of the most popular athletes in the world, really, in a very short period of time. We see each other every now and then and we still, I think we still, that was a special time. In the end, it's all about commitment, it's all about desire, all those kinds of things that you have to have to succeed as a driver because, to be honest, you're going to be unsuccessful a lot more than you're going to be successful.
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It's how do you react to that and how do you respond? Do you skulk away and feel sorry for yourself or you just become more determined that that's not going to happen the next time or you're going to improve yourself and that's what you're looking for. You're really looking for people who will do whatever it takes to get to the top.
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Chris: In addition to your son, Graham, this year's Rahal Letterman Lanigan team has some young but very seasoned talent. You mentioned Christian Lundgaard before, Pietro Fittipaldi. Christian will be starting his third full season in IndyCar. Pietro actually had six IndyCar starts in 2018 and Graham will be starting his 19th year behind the wheel of an IndyCar. Makes him like the grandfather of Indy right now, I think.
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Bobby: Yes, pretty much.
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Chris: Don't tell him I said that, though.
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Bobby: There are older drivers, but not many. I think Dixon has been around a lot longer. Of course, Tony Kanaan, although I think he retired this last-- There's a few-- Will Power, but, when you start at 18, that's--
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Chris: Sneaks up on you.
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Bobby: Yes, you can do a lot of races in 17 years.
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Chris: What are your expectations for each of them this year and for the team as a whole?
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Bobby: As you know, last year, it was not a-- We had a very good second half of the year last year, but our first half was not so good. Of course, the lowlight of that period was Graham not qualifying at Indy. In the end, he was able to get a ride with Dennis Reinbold, a good friend. Unfortunately, we had problems, couldn't start before the race, so anyway. For him not to qualify, this is a guy who was on track to win the 500 three years ago and has always been pretty competitive there.
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Of course the other two guys, both Jack Harvey and Christian didn't have really strong cars. As a team we let those guys down. A year ago, the day after the race, I went to our management and I said, in 30 days I want the plan, what I call the Indy recovery plan, what are we going to do to not just be able to qualify but to qualify up front. Because we have the drivers that can do that. We've been going through that process since then and I think there's really good reason to believe we'll be very competitive this year.
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The kind of talent that we have, even in 2018, Pietro, who was very young at the time, he qualified like 11th or something like that, or 12th. Very good performance on an oval. Christian, no question Christian can run up front. At Indy, it's so dependent on the car. The car really has to be right for a driver to really shine there. We fully expect to have cars that will allow our drivers to shine in 2024.
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Chris: We were talking about this before the show, your commitment to charitable causes is second to none. Full disclosure for audience, you, the Bobby Rahal Automotive Group, RLL Racing, and the Graham & Courtney Rahal Foundation have been very supportive of a non-profit I co-founded, Soldier Strong. Bobby, through your auto dealerships alone, you host more than 75 charitable events each year and have donated well over $1 million to many worthy community causes. Near and dear to Soldier Strong is your relationship with United Rentals and the creation of Turns for Troops. Would you talk about both of them, United Rentals and Turns for Troops, please?
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Bobby: Great company, United Rentals. Fortunate to be introduced to them through Mike Lanigan. Just great people, great company, really great company. I think we just, I think in our case, in Graham's case, really a great relationship between all three entities, especially between Graham and United Rentals. Of course his support, their support of Soldier Strong has been tremendous. I think as an individual, especially if you've had success, that there's a lot of people out there that haven't been lucky or haven't had the opportunity or, need that hand to help them up.
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I've always felt, for many years that you have an obligation to do that, to help people. I know Graham-- One of the things I'm most proud of Graham is his charitable commitment, his efforts on behalf of not just Soldier Strong but other charities. Soldier Strong, I think, certainly would be the biggest one. Yes, some of that's through United Rentals, some of it's through he's got a golf tournament before Indy, as you know, that generates a fair amount of money for Soldier Strong, as well as One Cure, which is our other charity that we back on a yearly basis.
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I just think that's a must do is to have that commitment to organizations that are out there helping people who need help. Of course, as you well know, seeing Sergeant Dan stand up, a veteran paralyzed in Afghanistan, and then thanks to your efforts and Soldier Strong as a whole, to see him get in the exoskeleton and walk across 50 feet, 100 feet across the stage or stand for the national anthem, at the start of the Indy 500, that's pretty amazing and pretty special. It just makes you convinced that you're doing the right thing.
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Chris: Graham had two great teachers, both with you and a former neighbor of mine, Paul Newman, to learn from the best. Graham always references Paul Newman's book. I just appreciate what he learned from him and that the legacy he passes on. Bobby Rahal, it was an absolute honor to have you with us today. Really appreciate your time. I know how busy you are so it was great catching up and great seeing you.
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Bobby: Thank you, Chris.
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Chris: Thank you so much for our audience for being with us today, which now includes people in over 50 countries. Join us for another episode of Next Steps Forward. More details and upcoming shows and guests, please follow me on Facebook at facebook.com/chrismeekpublicfigure and on X at @ChrisMeek_USA. We'll be back next Tuesday, same time, same place with another leader from the world of business, politics, public policy, sports, entertainment. Until then, stay safe and keep taking your next steps forward.
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Speaker 1: Thanks for tuning in to Next Steps Forward. Be sure to join Chris Meek for another great show next Tuesday at 10:00 AM Pacific Time and 1:00 PM Eastern Time on The Voice America Empowerment Channel. This week, make things happen in your life.
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[00:55:58] [END OF AUDIO]