In May 1975, Bobby Rahal made what, in his mind, was an easy decision.

So, with the blessing of his parents, Robert Woodward Rahal bypassed graduation ceremonies at Dennison University in Granville, Ohio, on May 25 to make his Player’s Canadian Formula Atlantic Series debut in far-flung Edmonton, Alberta.

The decision to participate in the race weekend at Edmonton International Speedway was sealed by his Formula Atlantic foray in the autumn of 1974 at Watkins Glen, where $500 from Jim Trueman and a 1972 BMW led him to victory.

“My graduation day was the same day as the race so I kind of viewed that my graduation day was celebrating the past and the race was celebrating the future,” said Rahal, a history major. “I have to say my parents didn’t argue with that, which I thought was a pleasant surprise.”

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With a new Lola T360 purchased from Carl Haas Automobile Imports in early January, Rahal qualified second in the field that included three-time champion Bill Brack, Elliott Forbes-Robinson, Howdy Holmes, Price Cobb and rising star Gilles Villeneuve.

Rahal drove the truck to haul the race car to racetrack.

“I had Red Roof Inn sponsorship and a friend of mine from college bought the car and my dad helped me a little bit and we had some help from others,” Rahal recounted. “It was a start of chasing the dream so to speak. It was exciting to go to, and the people I was racing against I had a lot of respect for. I would have been happy to be in the top 10 somewhere (in qualifying) and I ended up second.”

An electrical issue on the pace lap curtailed the outing on the 2.53-mile, 14-turn road course.

“The speed was there so I was pleased with that. I was on pole the next race (at Westwood),” added Rahal, who went on to win the SCCA National Championship Runoffs in a March 75B and the President’s Cup as the top amateur driver in the fall and joined Doug Shierson’s team for the 1976 Player’s Challenge Series (Formula Atlantic).

The Motorsports Hall of Fame of America member, whose driving record is anchored by a trio of CART championships and the 1986 Indianapolis 500 victory and who is among three men to have won the Indy 500 as a driver and owner, purchased the T360 Lola (1.6-liter Cosworth BDD engine and a 5-speed Hewland FT200 transmission) in 1998 and completed the restoration.

Rahal returns to the city this weekend with Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing for the Edmonton Indy. Takuma Sato, who started from the pole in 2011, will drive the No. 15 entry.

“We want to build a good race car for the race and not just make it a qualifying special,” Rahal said. “We feel more comfortable on the road course. We’ll be disappointed if we’re not starting at the front of the grid.”

Want a couple of more Edmonton connections?

Of Roger Penske’s 358 victories as an owner, two were in Can-Am and two in Trans-Am races in Edmonton. In fact, Edmonton is the first site Penske brought Mark Donohue to drive in Can-Am in 1968.

The genesis of Newman-Haas Racing, which began CART competition in 1983 with Mario Andretti as the driver, came at the 1982 Can-Am race in Edmonton when Carl Haas and Paul Newman were chatting. Newman-Haas Racing won the 2005 and ‘07 Edmonton Indy car races with Sebastien Bourdais behind the wheel. He’ll compete in the No. 7 TrueCar Dragon Racing entry this weekend.