Bobby Rahal
An American racing icon tackles the MN readers’ questions head-on
In a 16-year career behind the wheel of America’s leading single-seater championship, Bobby Rahal took part in more than 250 races, won three titles and claimed the most famous race of them all, the Indianapolis 500, in 1986. Had his career taken a slightly different path, that trophy collection could have included a host of silverware from Formula 1 too, but that opportunity went begging after just a couple of outings for the Wolf team.
While Rahal’s decorated career behind the wheel brought him the on-track successes he deserved in the United States, his move into team ownership in 1992 opened yet another chapter for the likeable Ohio-born man and it brought him the honour of being the owner-driver for a title triumph in that very first season.
He made it back to Formula 1 in 2000 as the CEO of the Jaguar team, but he left soon into the follow season. He has also held high-ranking positions with the CART organisation which looks after the top-tier US single-seater scene, and is also a proud father of current Indycar racer Graham. Indeed, his son’s name is a tribute to Rahal Sr’s early passion for European road racing, as he explains here.
Question: What got you in to racing, and how old were you?
John Charles
Via email
Bobby Rahal: “I was introduced to it through my parents. My father began sportscar racing in the late 1950s, so I pretty much remember my entire youth and childhood and later in to my teenage years my summers were going racing with my parents. I went to Sebring in 1957 or 1958, but I don’t recall that. I was only four of five years old.
“In the 1960s I was very drawn in to motorsport, again because of my father racing and we had a number of young guys that hung out at our house in their late teens and early 20s at the time, about 10 years older than me. They would take me drag racing, dirt track racing, sportscar race, Indycar races that sort of thing.
So it all came from personal experiences with my family.”
MN: What was your first Indy 500 as a spectator?
BR: “It’s almost bad to say this, but
I never had that much interest in the 500! I saw the ’64 race at a closed-circuit movie theatre, and of course that was a horrible race where Dave MacDonald and Eddie Sachs were killed, and MacDonald had been a bit of a hero because I’d read all
about him in the Cobras and King Cobras and all he had done. Jim Clark was my hero, so I was always cheering for the road racers against the Indycar racers. Dan Gurney, Jim Clark, Jackie Stewart – anybody that came out of road racing! I was so precious about road racing and them being the best, right?!
“In 1972 I listened to it on the radio the year Mark Donohue won, and I was like ‘See, I told you so. Road racers are better than Indycar racers!’
“I went to practice days in 1965 or 1966. But literally the first time I went to the actual 500 was my first race there. I’m not sure what that says! Indycar racing had changed quite a bit in those years because road racing circuits had become much more a part of the championship, and my interest in it really peaked. That’s how I got in to Indycar racing was because of the road courses.”
Question: Do you remember back in 1978 when you raced in Formula 3 here in the UK and you shared our workshop in Brentford? The UK’s first McDonald’s had just opened in Shepherd’s Bush and you took the entire team there for our first McDonald’s experience. Now they’re bloody everywhere! Good times! Ian Flux
Via phone
BR: “I know it’s recently been Ian’s birthday [he was 65 last week] and I wished him well! Yes, we worked out of his workshop prior to the F3 race at the British GP at Brands that year. That race had the huge startline shunt with Nelson Piquet and Derek Warwick. I got caught up in that. My car wasn’t too bad, then Satoru Nakajima who later drove in F1 for Lotus, hit me pretty hard from behind. I looked up and there he was, upside down, going over the top, luckily he landed on the road in front of me, and not on me. So yes, that was interesting…
“I made a lot of friends in England during those days, and Ian is certainly one of them.”
Question: I remember seeing you race at Brands Hatch in 1978. I wonder where you lived and did you enjoy English life? Was it weird being on the ‘wrong’side of the public road?
James Hilton
Via email
BR: “I had travelled to England in the mid 70s, ’74-75. I would always go to Lola at the end of the year to do some development work on the Atlantic car.
“My first time to England was 1965. I didn’t drive then, obviously. But I had been around the country with my family. My parents…well my father especially was a big Anglophile of the highest level!
“So I spent time driving in England prior to me coming over in ’78. That year I was primarily based in Italy at Dallara in Varano, Italy as I drove their Formula 3 car, so we were kind of visiting England. The next year, when I drove for Chevron I lived way up the country in a place called Ainsdale, near Southport by the Irish sea. I had a BMW 320i which I’d shipped over from the States. That was a little odd, to be on the left side of the car and drive on the left side of the road!”
Question: You’ve raced against them both so: Gilles Villeneuve or Mario Andretti?!
Martin Brown
Via email
BR: “That’s probably a little unfair because other than the two grands prix I did I only ever raced Gilles in Formula Atlantic. Of course Gilles was something special. I beat him, he beat me, but he did it when he needed to in 1976 when James Hunt suggested him to McLaren after the Trois Rivieres Grand Prix. All of us here loved it because they were all here, Hunt, Alan Jones, Vittorio Brambilla, Patrick Tambay, Jacques Laffite – all the hotshoes from Europe would come over to make a little bit of money, and we got the chance to race against them. Gilles beat everybody in ’76 which sent Hunt to McLaren to hire him.
“Mario obviously was at a much higher level for many more years than Gilles. I’m trying to remember… I first raced against Mario in 1978 at the US Grand Prix, but he was at one end of the grid, and I was at the other! Then he came and took the place of Tambay in a couple of Can-Am races, so I raced against him there. Then of course 1982 is when I really started to race against Mario on a regular basis, and he’d been around for at least 17 years at that point, since 1965 which was his rookie year in Indycar racing. I always considered Mario as the yardstick, you know the one that if you beat on any given day, then you had done something! I have the greatest respect for him, and all the different types of things that he won in, and drove in.
“Driving against Mario was a thrill, and
I certainly would have loved to have driven against Gilles more, but unfortunately he perished, and besides Atlantic I never really got the chance to do that. It was certainly exciting to see him do so well in Formula 1, especially as he was ‘one of us’ from Atlantic over here. He proved a little bit of a point in that some of us over here were good enough to compete at the highest level.”
Question: Just how close was the Ferrari Indycar project to being real? I know the car exists...
Russell Scobbie
Via email
BR: “Oh, it was pretty close. We shipped my Indycar March over to Fiorano, a couple of our mechanics over to stay with the car and help the mechanics at Ferrari to go over the in any way that they could. Gustav Brunner was the engineer. That was maybe September 1985. He was still coming to Indycar races with us later in that year up to October, so there was a lot of effort being extended on the part of Ferrari on the programme.
“It’s a shame that it never really ran in anger. It would have been wonderful to have seen how good it would have been. Steve Horne would know better than I, as he was much deeper on the organisation level of it all. Just the fact that the car was designed and built, the engine designed
“I made a lot of friends in my time in England” Bobby Rahal
Question: My partner and I were lucky enough to be a sponsor’s guest at the Indycar race at Long Beach in 2015 and were taken to the RRDC [Road Racing Drivers Club] dinner you hosted for Bobby Unser. It was a wonderful night of fun, memories and laughter. In light of Bobby’s recent passing I have two questions if that’s OK? It struck me how natural a host you were. Does TV appeal to you and did David Letterman give you tips? Second, your favourite Bobby Unser memory? PS: Thank you for a brilliant evening
Sarah
Via email
BR: “Hahaha! Thank you I’m glad you enjoyed the night, and yes, that one was a great night! When you look at the people that we’ve honoured over the past 10 years; Roger Penske, Mario Andretti,
Jim Hall, of course Bobby Unser, Johnny Rutherford, Brian Redman… the list goes on and on. Just great drivers with great stories and such a great crowd in Southern California. That one was a wonderful night, and of course Bobby… I’ve never felt in those dinners that I had to prise an answer out of anyone. With Bobby, especially, all you needed to do was light the fuse and stand back! He was such a character and he had so many great stories.
“Prior to every one of those dinners I try to buy the driver’s book and I read it, because I want to ask some intelligent questions. I got the chance to read Bobby’s book, and I learned a lot more about Bobby than I thought I knew about him – his work ethic and of course the family paying the price of racing. His brother Jerry was killed at Indy, and Jerry’s twin brother Louie Unser was badly affected by multiple sclerosis, but he still stayed very involved in motorsport. And Bobby was just one hell of a character.
“I love the story about when he and Mario Andretti flew over to do the Italian Grand Prix in 1968. They got there, and the FIA decided they couldn’t drive because they’d done the Hoosier 100 in Indy on the Saturday and the FIA had a rule that said you couldn’t do two races within 24 hours. They’d flown through the night, and listening to Bobby tell that story was priceless. Mario made him drive to the track from the airport, and encouraging him by saying ‘If anybody gets in the way, just run over them, don’t worry about it!’
“Then they had to get back on the plane for another sprint car race or something. It’s amazing when you think about it, airline travel then wasn’t what it is today, and yet they made that kind of effort to do it. Within a month or so, Mario put the Lotus on pole at Watkins Glen and Bobby didn’t qualify because he had a blown engine [Unser actually did qualify but retired from the race with engine failure]. But listening to those guys, listening to Bobby and having that experience….
“One of the great stories was told to me by Leo Mehl, head of Goodyear Racing for many, many years. They had left Phoenix after testing on the oval, and Bobby had a plane to fly to Albuquerque which is the next state to the east in New Mexico. And there’s nothing but desert between. So they get up to cruising altitude, and Bobby tells Leo that he’s going to take a quick nap, and asks Leo to wake him in 15 mins or so. Unfortunately, Leo also fell asleep. By the time Bobby woke up, nobody had any idea where they were! They had to fly down to almost street level looking for road signs to try and figure out where they were. Forget the fact they could very easily killed them both, it’s tales like that that made Bobby unique. And that is just one of them! That evening with Bobby telling stories could have gone on all night long…”
Question: I still think the Wolf WR1 is the coolest Formula 1 car ever.
Do you agree?!
Emma Facey
Via email
BR: “I saw Jody Scheckter drive that car in 1977 at Long Beach, and had it not been for a flat tyre he would probably have won that race. The WR1 was such a simple car, it was beautifully done, and there was no waste in it. I always told people that it was like a Formula Atlantic car on steroids. It was nicely balanced, it had great traction. I drove the car at Montreal. I passed a Ferrari and Rosberg and was running P10 or 11 having started P20. The car was just a really nice car to drive. Compare that to the WR5 which I drove at Watkins Glen… I wasn’t a fan of that car at all! Even Jody could barely make that car go on a regular basis. They struggled a lot with it.
“But the WR1 was just…an easy car to drive, so predictable. I didn’t really spend that much time in it. One practice session, one qualifying and the race, but it was a car that gave you so much confidence to push. And it had to have been, 1977 for example, it had to have been good. I regret that we didn’t finish that race in Montreal, because I think we’d have finished pretty well.”
MN: How close were you to a full-time Formula 1 ride with Wolf?
BR: “I thought I was close. A fellow named Oliver Stahel, he was the guy behind the green-and-blue Ying and Yang symbol on the car, it was a firm that traded in commodities. Well he was the one that funded the Formula 3 team in 1978. He was introduced to Walter [Wolf]. He was a ski instructor but had dreams of being a race car driver, and Walter convinced him to be a sponsor of a Formula 3 team, build a car and give this young guy a chance and blah, blah, blah. It didn’t quite work out, but Oliver was obviously helping to bankroll the effort. I think Oliver was happy, but I don’t think Peter Warr was a fan of mine, necessarily. I was told that for 1979 James Hunt insisted on a one-car team, so that was that. Then he quit at Monaco and the seat was back open, but by that time Keke [Rosberg] was more of a known choice, by then he’d done some grands prix and they went with Keke, which was obviously disappointing, but that’s the way it goes sometimes.”
MN: Did you have much to do with Harvey Postlethwaite? And if so, what was he like?
BR: “Not really. Nice fellow. It’s like anything, you know oftentimes when you walk in to a situation like that, most of the team were like, ‘What are we doing this for?’But it was interesting, they were all very helpful and many of the mechanics back then ended up in the States working on Can-Am and Indycar, so I knew many of them for years afterwards.
“I spent very little time with Harvey. I think he was more focused on Jody and WR5, and we were on WR6 so we were a little bit of a distraction when I came there. Walter was great. I love Walter. Everybody treated me very well, and I have no regrets. I’m just disappointed we couldn’t fulfil the next year, the next step in F1 on a regular basis.”
Question: Of all of the European race tracks you drove which is the one you enjoyed the most?
Jon Wood
Via email
BR: “I must say I enjoyed most of the European circuits but, without a doubt, the Nurburgring. It was and still is the most amazing circuit. I tell people that you didn’t do laps there – you did ‘adventures’! Every lap was an adventure.
“That, to me, was just amazing, and we did well there. We finished third in the Formula 3 race. I was leading there in the
F2 race and the engine broke, but what a circuit. Having said that, I really, really loved Mugello, the Brands Hatch Grand Prix circuit. And of course Le Mans before the chicanes on the Mulsanne straight… that was pretty exciting in the Porsche 935s.
“There are so many great circuits but I would have to say the Nurburgring would have to be number one for me.”
Question: Were the Can-Am cars as scary as they look?
Malcolm Munt
Via email
BR: “Well… If you look at them now you go ‘yeah!’But at the time, once again I was 26 when I took over the George Follmer car and George was a pretty big hero in this country, and they were pretty big shoes to fill, or try to fill, and for me it was a big step and it didn’t change my impression. Once you get to drive those cars…it was good racing. We had Rosberg, Stephen South, Tambay,
Geoff Lees, Geoff Brabham was in there in 1979.
“I did five races. I would much rather them than the F5000 cars from a couple of years earlier. It was a F5000 Lola with a body on, and they were quite quick! At the time they were faster than the unlimited Can-Am cars from five years earlier, and most of the circuits like Elkhart Lake and Mid-Ohio were fast. You certainly didn’t want to hit anything in one of those. There was very little protection in the front. Then again, when you are young you don’t even look at that stuff!
“Fortunately I didn’t have any incidents and won a race in 1979 and was on the front row for every race I ran that year. It was a thrill to race them, but they certainly were ‘not very robust’in terms of driver safety. But I would also have to say that not much was in those days. You just took things the way things were, and if you didn’t like it, don’t do it! It’s that simple.”
Question: Is it true that your son Graham [a successful Indycar racer in his own right] is named after
Graham Hill?
Jack Crowther
Via email
BR: “Yes he is! I always had a lot of respect for Graham Hill. Did he have the gift or talent that Jackie Stewart or
Jim Clark had? You’d have to say no. But did he have a work ethic, and an ability to make the most of what he had? You would definitely say yes, and I think that is admirable. Some of the greatest athletes, not necessarily the most gifted ones, make the most of whatever they have. I always looked at Graham Hill that way.
“I never knew him, never met him. I’ve obviously met his wife Bette later on and she was a lovely lady. And then through Adrian (Newey) I got to meet Damon a few times, but I just thought he was a class act, so I thought that would be a good name, and that’s where it is!”
Question: As a driver you raced in F1, been a winner at Indy, Daytona and Sebring, and raced at Le Mans. Then did it all again as a team principal, again as a winner. That’s quite a resume…
Barry May
Via email
BR: “If I regret anything in my career, it would be Le Mans. I did it in 1980, ’81 and ’82, but 1980 was our best chance of doing well with the 935. We were running well in the race, then we lost a cylinder, and that was that. We went back in ’81 with Brian Redman to drive the Lola Porsche and the car had never turned a wheel before we got to qualifying which is not exactly how you want to go in to a 24 Hour race.
“Then in 1982 went back with a March
“When you are young, you don’t think of the danger” Bobby Rahal