Team Rahal Recruits Talent From County

Only one champ car team is based in California, but there’s a team in Hilliard, Ohio, that generates more than a passing interest among local fans.

Max Papis, driver for Bobby Rahal, goes into today’s Grand Prix of Long Beach powered by a Ford engine and plenty of Orange County elbow grease.

Team Rahal was the big winner in the PPI sweepstakes, which began when Cal Wells III pulled his Rancho Santa Margarita-based PPI Motorsports team out of the CART FedEx Championship Series after the 2000 season.

Rahal hired Mark Johnson of Laguna Niguel as Team Rahal’s director of operations, a position similar to the one he held as vice president of operations and general manager at PPI.

There’s usually not much turnover at Team Rahal. But Johnson hired a few trusted members of the PPI stable, including race engineer John Dick, who helped Scott Pruett to Toyota’s first pole position in 1999 before the cars had competitive engines; Bobby Golasinski, who was crew chief for Oriol Servia and now is team crew chief for Papis and teammate Kenny Brack; and Bharat Naran, crew chief for Papis who was previously crew chief for Cristiano da Matta, the winner of PPI’s first champ car race.

That was more change at Team Rahal than there had been in five years.

“There are a lot of PPI guys spread around the paddock, but not in such a consolidated effort,” said Johnson, who arrived in Orange County in 1977 and still lives in Laguna Niguel with his wife, Becky, and daughters Jessica, 14, and Shea, 12.

The PPI contingent joins forces with two others from Orange County, engineer Alan Burke, who began his racing career in 1978 with Dan Gurney’s All American Racers in Santa Ana; and Papis’ gearbox specialist Kevin Hanrahan, who grew up in Costa Mesa.

“Right now in open-wheel racing, and motor sports in general, there’s a real shortage of good quality personnel available through the ranks, whether it’s mechanics, electricians or managers,” Johnson said. “So whenever you have the opportunity to take good quality people who understand the mechanics [of racing], but also the expertise required, the commitment required, you can’t pass that opportunity up in this day and age.”

That isn’t to say there wasn’t a bump in the road. Golasinski admitted there was some resentment in the ranks.

“We worked through the bad honeymoon stage,” said Golasinski, who has been with Team Rahal for 3 1/2 months. “We’re all here to win a championship for both guys.”

Rahal hasn’t won a championship as an owner or driver since 1992. Said Golasinski: “Nobody remembers who won last year at Portland, but they introduce Gil de Ferran as the CART champion.”

That’s the introduction Rahal wants for his drivers.

“When Bobby came to me, his mandate was to elevate the stature of his team in a lot of different areas,” said Johnson, 45. “The team’s been very good for a lot of years, but a bit inconsistent in its results.”

Example: Kenny Brack was on the pole in the season-opening race at Monterrey and is on the front row today. Papis was 11th in Monterrey and is 13th today.

Most of the new guys work with Papis, who lived in Newport Beach for 2 1/2 years when he drove for PPI before he replaced Rahal in 1999. “We’re trying to give him a little more comfortable environment,” said Golasinski, who serves as conduit between the crews of Papis and Brack. “A lot of guys go two, three, four races before they click.”

Papis said after his frustrating performance in qualifying on Saturday that the team isn’t the problem.

“I have confidence we are going to do well at the end because we have a good bunch of people, but it is frustrating [so far],” he said. “The chemistry is there. . . . The most important thing is having a good car, and at the moment, I don’t feel I have it.”

But Johnson thinks Papis’ time is coming with Dick as the race engineer. The relationship between engineer and driver is the most important in racing.

“I watched John work with Scott Pruett, who was one of the most experienced veterans on the tour and got excellent results out of him,” Johnson said. “And then he turned around and worked with Oriol Servia, a rookie, and got excellent results out of him. John seemed like a good fit with Max.”