PRUETT: The silver lining in Rahal's 1993 500 miss

Graham Rahal wants to emulate almost everything his father accomplished in motor racing.

Winning the Indy 500, as Bobby Rahal did in 1986, tops the list. Becoming a three-time IndyCar Series champion, as Bob accomplished with titles in 1986, 1987 and 1992, also ranks as priority.

Following in his dad’s footsteps on the 25th anniversary of Rahal-Hogan Racing failing to qualify for the 1993 Indy 500? Graham’s doing all he can to avoid adding his name to that family distinction.

Bob’s entry for the Greatest Spectacle In Racing proudly bore the number 1 on its nose and flanks. The Rahal-Hogan Racing chassis, a Truesports 92C that was developed by the defending CART IndyCar Series champions, had been renamed the “R/H 001” in deference to its new owners.

By the time qualifying was over and the popular Indy winner wasn’t part of the field of 33, the R/H stood for “Real Handful,” and the defending series champion was missing from the show. The all-American car, designed and built in Ohio, was powered by a solid Chevy engine – the same Emerson Fittipaldi would use to win the 1993 Indy 500 – but even the Bowtie’s horsepower couldn’t mask the R/H 001’s shortcomings.

(Image by Marshall Pruett)

“Well, if I’m gonna be brutally honest with myself … we won the championship, Rahal-Hogan had a great year … won four races, a lot of great consistency and, foolishly kind of thought, we could, you know, we could do it,” Rahal said, reflecting on the brave move that saw the team move from running Lolas in 1992 to becoming a chassis constructor.

“We had a lot of confidence – me as a driver and as an owner, and we had the opportunity to test the Truesports car that Don Halliday had designed and thought it was a, a pretty good car. And we did that in, I’m gonna say, August or September of ‘92, tested at Mid-Ohio with the car and felt like this might have potential.”

It didn’t. At least not at Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

If anything, the troubled 1992 season experienced by Truesports and driver Scott Pruett with the rubber band-like 92C was as a roadmap to where Rahal’s team would arrive at Indy.

“So, then we had the bright idea, and I’ll take full responsibility, but [we] had the bright idea that we should go this direction with our own car, um, because obviously if it was good enough, and we’re the only one that had it, we could win another championship. I had a lot of respect for Don Halliday, and still do, and off we went.”

To Rahal’s credit, the rebadged Truesports chassis showed some speed on street courses where consistent handling was not an expectation. The bumpy, undulating city streets masked the R/H 001’s deficiencies, but once the chassis was introduced to Indy’s long, smooth corners, the flexible car surrendered copious amounts of speed whenever Rahal turned the steering wheel.

“The results; there were some false hopes in the sense that we went to Long Beach, finished second in the car,” he said. “We were sixth in the car in Australia … [and] it was like, hey, that’s not too bad. It’s like, well, we’ll go to Indy and we’ll be right there because the car had been competitive when Scott Pruett drove it.

Pruett had coaxed midfield speed from the 92C, but he had also been vocal about its shortcomings as the season continued. As other chassis manufacturers made progress with their cars, the little one-car Truesports outfit was being left behind at each round on the development front.

Using funds from the significant corporate backing the No. 1 car carried, Rahal hoped to find untapped potential within the 92C as new development projects were commissioned by the Rahal-Hogan team for 1993. Ambition, as he recalls, was never lacking.

“Things change from year to year, but nevertheless we thought we could take that basic car and make a better version of it,” he continued. “We got very heavily involved in producing a lot of components – the gearbox, and actually looking at a new tub. And frankly, in the end, the project was more than we could digest.”

(Image by Pruett)

As two weeks of practice and qualifying got under way, Rahal occasionally found himself toward the middle of the time sheets, but there was a disturbing trend as a deficit of six miles per hour or more was shown to the leaders.

“I think it was up to the fourth lap in qualifying, we actually had the speed to make it into the field, but you weren’t ever quite sure where it was going,” he said. “Kind of an understeer, oversteer, you know. I mean, it was not very confidence inspiring for sure, but we had made our bed, and we had to sleep in it.”

His qualifying average of 221.1mph fell shy of Scott Goodyear’s 221.8mph run to earn the last spot on the grid. After turning 367 laps searching for fractions of a second, a shocking outcome was visited upon the Rahal-Hogan team.

“I’ll never forget before qualifying [team principal] Scott Roembke, who was never prone to sugarcoat anything, said to me, ‘I don’t think we’re going to be able to qualify,’” Rahal recalled. “And I said, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me. What are you talking about?’ I said, ‘Well, there’s no way.’ Well, it became pretty clear that we had a problem. And we did everything we could and it wasn’t enough.”

With heavy investment from Miller Beer and other well-known sponsors for the season, the concept of watching from the sidelines at the sport’s biggest race was never considered.

“It was a very emotional … I remember in our suite, of course, I had a suite then, and we had all of our sponsors up there, and I’m up there with them and they got very emotional,” Rahal admitted. “I’m watching the pace lap thinking, hey, I’m, I’m supposed to be out there, not up here where I am. And that really, that really taught me a lesson.”

Rahal would soon find his calamitous qualifying came with a silver lining.

“Lots of good things came from that experience,” he said. “I mean, here you won the championship in ‘92, and now you don’t qualify in ’93 for the 500, Miller was my sponsor, [and] the idea that you don’t make the Indy 500? I mean, that was the race that had the most importance and still does, and then to not be there…

“I have to say that the head of marketing for Miller at the time was a guy named Dick Strup, and he was amazing. [He] took me on essentially a three-year deal, and so we were in the second year, and when we went home with our tail between our legs, then the next day, a three-year extension came in the mail. Talk about the ultimate sign of faith.”

Another positive would follow Miller’s extension when the team made a pricey investment in new Lolas. Rahal-Hogan’s fortunes improved immediately.

“Of course, after the 500, we bought a couple Lolas and I’m finishing fourth in Milwaukee the next race and ended up having not a bad year, but it really taught me and maybe others – Tim Cindric he was there then – a lot of lessons about overconfidence,” Rahal said. “Hubris is another term for it. So, you know, we felt after ‘92 we could do anything, and it was clear that you couldn’t do everything.”

For 1994, Rahal-Hogan would enter into a new partnership with Honda as the Japanese brand entered the CART IndyCar Series. Using new Lolas, Rahal had removed any chassis concerns at the Speedway, but his new issue was found in the engine bay. High weight and low power would send Rahal and teammate Mike Groff into panic mode as, for the second consecutive year, qualifying for the race was in jeopardy.

“To add onto that story, so in ‘94, we show up with the Hondas, and we don’t have the pace, but with Lolas, you know, so we had the same cars as everybody else, but we didn’t have the pace to qualify,” he said.

“What happened in ‘93 is really what spurred us on to have to lease two Penskes [chassis] from Roger, and obviously, which did not go well – down well with Honda, uh, because we had to withdraw those cars in order to qualify the Penske cars, but I couldn’t go to Miller and say, sorry, we’re not going to make the Indy 500 two years in a row, you know? They didn’t care what motor I had in that car or what chassis I had. All they cared about was being in the race, so the ‘93 experience really spurred things in ’94.”

Rahal in a Penske car, 1994 (Image by Pruett)

With the wisdom of 25 years to reflect on missing the 1993 race, Rahal wonders if it the outcome was a sign from above.

“It was a very traumatic time for us,” he said. “For me particularly, to miss the race, I have to say, I think maybe that was God’s way of keeping me out of the race ‘cause I’m not sure the car was … it was pretty fragile.”

In the aftermath of missing the 500, Rahal received a note from his hero who was also known for pushing boundaries with unique cars.

“I’ll never forget after that, I got a note from Dan Gurney who was always accused of messing around too much,” he said. “I got a note from him that basically said, hey, don’t look back. You tried. He had done the same, and sometimes it works. Sometimes it didn’t, and so at least I took some solace in that.”

After destroying the field in 1994 with his Ilmor-Mercedes Penske PC23s, the Captain would know Rahal’s pain in 1995 when his cars weren’t quick enough to make the show. Just as Penske made cars available for Rahal in 1994, Rahal made his backups available for Penske, but the defending Indy 500 winners missed the cut.

“I took real solace in it when Roger’s team didn’t qualify two years later in our cars, which had qualified, you know?” he said. “So, the same cars … I guess nobody’s too big to fail. Let’s put it that way. They’re not always happy endings, you know?”