LONG BEACH, California – Graham Rahal’s Honda has a new paint scheme and the Verizon IndyCar Series driver is hoping it serves up success in Sunday’s Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach.
Indianapolis-based Steak & Shake begins its sponsorship in this weekend’s race with associate sponsorship from Maxim and the red-and-black IndyCar looks fast even when it’s sitting still in the Rahal Letterman Lanigan paddock area.
The young driver can’t help but smile when he thinks of all the possibilities on his IndyCar menu.
“It looks really good and I’m thrilled to have Steak & Shake and Maxim on board with us,” Rahal said as he prepares to get on track for Friday’s practice session. “It’s pretty exciting for us right now. I think this team has pretty good momentum. We’ve shown that on the track and the sponsorship side looks pretty good too. I’m excited to get here and get running this weekend. It should be pretty cool. I’m really looking forward to it.”
In addition to the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach Steak & Shake will also be on the car at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in May. With the company’s world headquarters in that city Rahal and his flashy looking Honda should be a crowd favorite in the Indianapolis 500.
“I think the Steak & Shake there that was outside of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway was always popular with the Indy crowd,” Rahal recalled. “David Letterman (his co-owner) used to use the bus stop right near there so after school he would go to the bus stop, get dropped off, go to Steak & Shake and then go into the Speedway and watch some practice.
“It’s pretty cool to have that opportunity to represent them there.”
Think about the new tradition Rahal could start if he won the Indianapolis 500 in the Steak & Shake car – in addition to the “Bottle of Milk” he could also celebrate with a milkshake.
With his sponsor’s product served hot off the grill Rahal’s season has included some hot laps on the track. He was fast in the season-opener in the Firestone Grand Prix of Long Beach on March 29 before he was penalized for running into the back of Charlie Kimball during the race. Despite that incident he fought his way back to finish 11th. In last Sunday’s rain and caution plagued race at NOLA Motorsports Park Rahal finished eighth but was fast in key portions of that contest.
“On the rain tires we were the best and moving up through the field and feeling pretty good where I was at,” Rahal said of last Sunday’s race. “On the dry tires I was struggling a little bit but never ran more than a half-lap before another caution so I didn’t know what the potential of the car was. It was a shame the race went that way in the end. We had a car capable of winning and never got to see that through.
“I do feel good about this weekend. Hopefully we can put a good one together here.”
Rahal is one of several drivers in the current field that competed in the Champ Car Series finale in the 2008 Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach. That race came after unification and while the previous drivers and teams that were part of the Indy Racing League competed at Twin Ring Motegi in Japan earlier in the day the teams that moved over from Champ Car were able to close the series in one final race with the cars from that series.
“There was some sadness from the sense those cars were going away but there was happiness that there was momentum with a unified IndyCar Series,” Rahal recalled. “While people were disappointed it was the end of that era with the cars there was a lot of energy moving forward in the Verizon IndyCar Series. That era had already started with Homestead and St. Pete before that.”
Rahal believes the current Dallara DW012 is actually a better cornering car at Long Beach because of the grip in the corners and the Champ Car had more top-end speed on this street course.
This is the “Era of Aero” with the Aero Kits in IndyCar and that has invited some additional contact on the race course because of the additional bodywork and grip.
“We are all race car drivers and if anybody sees an opportunity on the race track they are going to go for it,” Rahal said. “The drivers aren’t making wise decisions, I’ll give you that. Everybody is going to have to be pretty happy here and there are a lot of drivers emailing each other about that very thing.
“You are going to be pretty smart at this place with the hairpin and going into Turn 1. That is going to invite contact.”
Rahal has the confidence he can avoid the contact and order up some success at Long Beach.
“Without a doubt I’m pretty happy where we are at because the car has been really good,” he said. “We were disappointed with the finishes and if we didn’t get the penalty at St. Pete we’re on the podium. We’ve had to earn it. It hasn’t been handed to us. We are definitely feeling better and coming to Long Beach we have had two years in a row here where we have been strong – second two years ago and then last year in the top four before getting punted by Mikhail Aleshin.
“I believe we should be very strong here on Sunday.”