BOBBY RAHAL : Indy 500 Victory, Like Golf, Has Suited Him to a Tee

One of the first things people usually say to Bobby Rahal when introduced to the Indianapolis 500 winner is, “You don’t look like a race driver.”

To which the chain-smoking Rahal, with his receding hairline, thick glasses and bushy black mustache, invariably replies with a hint of irritation: “What is a race driver supposed to look like?”

Central casting would probably target Rahal for a role as a history professor--which wouldn’t be too far-fetched. Before he became a professional race driver, Rahal earned a degree in history from Denison University.

Looks and a college degree are not all that set the 33-year-old Ohioan apart from many of his fellow drivers. Driving a race car is important to Rahal, but it’s not an all-consuming thing.

When Rahal was met by a reporter at an airport earlier this week, Rahal’s opening remarks were not about his five Indy cars wins or his tight race with young Michael Andretti for this year’s CART/PPG championship.

“Hey, I got invited to play in the Crosby,” he said with obvious pride in his golf game.

Later, asked about the scariest moments of his big year, one that included racing in traffic at 220 m.p.h., Rahal smiled his gap-toothed grin and replied:

“Standing on the first tee at Muirfield in the Memorial pro-am. Jack Nicklaus was about three groups behind me, so the fairway was lined with people waiting for him. I was absolutely petrified. I looked down at my legs to see if people could tell if my knees were shaking. I thought of all the things I had to do--you know, keep my head still, slow backswing, don’t sway, keep my eye on the ball, all that stuff.

“Finally, I had to swing at it. Right down the center of the fairway, about 250 (yards). What a great feeling! I was still shaking, though.”

A week later, Rahal stood in the winner’s circle at Indianapolis Motor Speedway with his wife, Debi, and car owner, Jim Trueman. Most winners, at that moment, wave to the crowd, often thrusting an index finger in the air as a sign of No.1. Rahal waved, but in his hands was his daughter, Micheala, barely 4 1/2 months old. She was certainly the youngest person ever in the winner’s circle, but Rahal didn’t want to savor his win without her.

“When Debi and I brought her home, it was the most important thing that’s happened to us,” Rahal said. “Every day, watching her grow and do little things she hadn’t done before, is a thrill for us. She has really changed our life.”

So has winning the Indy 500.

“Professionally, it brought me a degree of tranquility. In the United States, no matter how many races you win, you haven’t made it until you win a major, just like in golf, and there’s no major like the Indy 500. That may not be the only one, but like the Masters or the heavyweight boxing championship, there is no doubt that winning it makes your career a success.

“Commercially, it opens a lot of doors, opens them wide. Companies want to be associated with the Indy 500 winner. After the Meadowlands race (in June), we went on a tour of New York ad agencies. We were welcomed with open arms. If we’d walked in without winning Indy, they’d probably have said, ‘What are you doing here?’

“Psychologically, it gives you a lift you’ll never get over. For the rest of your life, if you never win another race, your name will always be prefaced with ‘The Indianapolis 500 winner.’ That’s an impressive statement.”

Before the race, Rahal had said it would be a greater achievement to win the national championship than the 500. He still subscribes to that thinking.

“As a driver, I still feel it is more of an achievement,” he said. “You win Indy on one day, one three-hour period. To win the championship, you have to maintain your performance over 17 races. That is awfully difficult to do.

“Indy is difficult because of all the hype leading up to the race, and I know that winning the 500 will do more for your career, but purely from a driver’s standpoint, winning the championship is more difficult.”

Going into Sunday’s 300-kilometer Nissan Monterey Grand Prix at Laguna Seca, Rahal has a two-point lead over Michael Andretti, whose father, Mario, has won the championship four times, once as recently as 1984. Rahal has 138 points to 136 for the younger Andretti and 115 for 1985 Indy 500 winner Danny Sullivan.

“I like our chances of winning the championship because there are only three races left and they’re all on tracks where our team has done well,” Rahal said. “I’ve won the last two races at Laguna Seca; I won two years ago at Phoenix, and I finished second behind Sullivan last year at Miami.”

Rahal, who didn’t drive in his first Indy car race until he and Trueman decided in 1982 to take their road racing experience and go oval track racing, has won five races this year. No one else has won more than two.

Two victories were on road circuits--at Mid-Ohio’s closed course and at Toronto, where they race through the city streets. The three others were on ovals--500-mile races at Indianapolis and Michigan and a shorter one at Sanair Speedway in Quebec.

“Not bad for an old road racer, eh?” Rahal said with a mischievous grin, recalling the days when Indy car devotees looked down their noses at the sports car set.

The year has not been without its bittersweet moments, however. Trueman, who had been associated with Rahal’s racing career in one manner or another since 1974, died of cancer just 11 days after seeing his car win the 500.

“Jim had a big impact on my life, and his death left an impact, but Jim also left me with an example,” Rahal said. “Now, I ask myself, ‘How would Jim have done this?’ and that’s how I go about it. There is no way to make up his loss, but he has made it easier for me to move ahead.

“I don’t know if there has ever been a guy like Jim in motor racing, he did so much for so many people. I doubt if there will be another one like him.”

Trueman’s widow, Barbara, has taken over operation of the Truesports racing team.

“Barbara asks tougher questions than Jim ever did,” Rahal said. “A lot of what Jim did in racing was for the love of it. Barbara wants to see the bottom line. She wants to see it make money.”

This year’s success, Rahal believes, is the culmination of five years’ work by a team put together by Trueman and directed by crew chief Steve Horne. In their first Indy car season, Rahal finished second to Rick Mears in the 1982 CART standings and was named rookie of the year. He was third in both 1984 and 1985.

“I felt our team had the capability right from the start, but we suffered through an unbelievable degree of unreliability that cost us the championship in both the past two years,” Rahal said.

“Since (our) coming to Indy car racing, no one has won more races than we have. This year, starting with Indy, things seem to be going our way a bit more. I think a lot of it has to do with the team being together, and my maturing as a driver, especially as a strategist.”

Rahal displayed his maturity in the final laps at Indianapolis, where he used a caution period to his advantage, then passed Kevin Cogan with five miles to go. Cogan was leading and appeared to have the race won when an accident brought out the caution flag and the pace car.

Rahal, anticipating the green flag with two laps remaining, accelerated early and built his speed before the pace car pulled off the track. At the key moment, he gunned his March-Cosworth with a burst of speed that caught Cogan by surprise. Once Cogan realized what had happened, it was too late.

“The same thing that happened to Cogan had happened to me earlier in my career,” Rahal said. “This time, I knew how to handle it.”

His maturity showed again at Toronto, where he won despite having been held in the pits for 46 seconds as a penalty for passing the pace car in mid-race. Rahal had a substantial lead when his car was black-flagged and brought into the pits. By the time he was allowed to leave, he had fallen to ninth place.

“I’d never heard of a penalty like that,” he said. “I was so mad that Steve (Horne) told me I could quit if I wanted, but I was so mad I wanted to show what I could do. It’s a good thing I won or I’d have been really mad.

At Laguna Seca this weekend, Rahal will be looking for his third straight win over the 1.9-mile hillside course near Monterey.

“It’s premature to start running for points, and not the win,” he said. “Besides, when you start getting cute and studying the point structure . . . everything backfires on you.

“If we win the championship this year, after winning Indy in the same year, I think I’d have to say we had a hell of a year. For me, for my team, it’s already been a tremendous achievement. Right now, if it all went away, to have won five races, including Indianapolis, would be a great year.”

But Rahal is already looking ahead to 1987--as a golfer, at least.

“While I’m at Laguna Seca, I’m going to play the Pebble Beach and Cypress Point courses. Got to get ready for the Crosby, you know,” he said, referring to Bing’s old clambake that is now known as the AT&T; Pebble Beach National Pro-Am.