INDYCAR MEDIA CONFERENCE

July 1, 2025

Bobby Rahal

Graham Rahal

Press Conference

THE MODERATOR: Eight races remain in the 2025 NTT INDYCAR Series championship, five of which come up this month, incredibly enough. It all begins with the Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio presented by the 2026 Passport.

Always a homecoming for the Rahal family. Even more special this year, Sunday, Graham will make his 19th start at Mid-Ohio. The 2015 Mid-Ohio champ, the driver of the No. 15 Fifth Third Bank Honda for Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, and dad Bob won that race back in 1985, and this Sunday Bobby will serve as the grand marshal as he and the track celebrate 40 years since his first INDYCAR Series win, and both join us this afternoon.

Bobby, let's start with you. Clearly a ton of great memories at Mid-Ohio and I'm assuming you couldn't say yes quick enough when they asked you if you'd be interested in being the grand marshal on Sunday.

BOBBY RAHAL: Yeah, very honored and appreciative. As you say, Mid-Ohio is kind of like my home track. I went there with my dad. He drove in the first race there, I think it was 1962, and every year we would go there at least once to race, all during the '60s, and then I started there in 1974 in SCCA National and of course won a lot of races at Mid-Ohio, and the fans are the best at Mid-Ohio. I just love -- again, it was like my home track.

Of course the relationship I had with Jim Trueman and seeing what he did with that track and winning in front of him in 1985 was really special.

So yeah, I'm really pleased and am looking forward to a great weekend.

THE MODERATOR: Layering in the 4th of July weekend, it's become a really cool weekend to celebrate the country and celebrate INDYCAR racing as well. Graham, for you, it's a cool honor for your dad. What were trips to Mid-Ohio like for you growing up and certainly winning there for you?

GRAHAM RAHAL: For me, Mid-Ohio is mainly the reason I fell in love with the sport I would say. You've got to remember in that part of my life, Indy 500 wasn't really a thing for us, right, kind of in those instrumental years, mid '90s, late '90s. So Mid-Ohio, Cleveland, Burke Lakefront, those were races for me that I really fell in love. I have so many fond memories of Mid-Ohio in particular, staying in the bus, creating all kind of hell late at night, which now I look back and I think I don't know how dad dealt with us doing that.

There were so many great memories, and now a lot of the reason why I do what I do and what I fell in love with.

To me, to win there in 2015 was a huge moment in my career. It would have obviously been great to win more there. I thought in -- what year did we start in the front row, 2023? We had a great chance at it. Unfortunately weren't able to put all the pieces of the puzzle together.

We've had good speed on the road courses this year. Obviously last race strategy-wise really shot ourselves in the foot and we've had some hiccups this year in that regard, but the pace has been there, and we're going to certainly try to maximize that and do a really, really great job this weekend.

Q. Bobby, how did you put up with young Graham running around Mid-Ohio?

BOBBY RAHAL: Yeah, I'm not sure if I was 100 percent aware of all the trouble he was creating. But he and Mark Blundell's son used to hang out, and I still have -- I think one of the greatest pictures, it just brings a smile to my face is Graham must have been five or six, and he would hang around with the staff that would take care of the motor home back in those days, and it was after a race or maybe after practice or qualifying, he was on the tire carrier just covered in brake dust and just a complete mess, and he had the biggest smile on his face.

I don't know where that photo went, but it kind of just said it all.

Luckily, I had a lot of people -- his mother took care of him. Luckily I had a lot of people that were helping out as well. It didn't really infringe on my activities.

But again, tracks like Mid-Ohio, Road America, Watkins Glen, the camping out, the trees, the park-like atmosphere, that's just so special.

I guess he had to do something. I think that's where he actually tried to write one of his mother's checks and buy a shirt or something at the shirt stand when he was about eight years old --

GRAHAM RAHAL: I successfully wrote it.

BOBBY RAHAL: Yeah, maybe a little bit of larceny at Mid-Ohio, too.

THE MODERATOR: It only counts if you get caught.

GRAHAM RAHAL: I got caught. It was Gator sunglasses, and the guy brought the check -- he gave me the glasses, in the end took them back. He brought the check to my mom and asked if it was really her writing, so I got busted.

THE MODERATOR: To me the team has a lot of momentum certainly on road courses, Firestone Fast Six at IMS, two in the top six qualifying last week at Road America including pole position. How do you keep this momentum going with the team?

GRAHAM RAHAL: Yeah, I'm three in a row on road and street courses in the Fast Six, and I think that's something I can't say has ever happened prior. Nowadays in particular with as competitive as it is, it's extremely difficult to do.

Obviously Louis has been tremendous lately as far as his performance. He's really stepped up. Earlier in the year I think he struggled a little bit to get used to the car, et cetera, but he's done a wonderful job, and Dev probably should have been there at Road America. A couple little mistakes, and probably putting a little bit too much pressure on himself at this stage. He's got the speed, but Road America kind of highlighted the personal pressure he's putting, so we're going to try to help him for this weekend. But I think the pace has been there.

I was literally on a Teams call prior to this talking about race pace. We've got to get a little bit better. Strategy for sure we've got to get better.

But I do feel like there's a lot of confidence for us as a team going into Mid-Ohio and several -- even Toronto and some of the others knowing that we've certainly made the cars a lot better.

Obviously short oval package is a major concern right now for us. Major. Didn't have a great test at Iowa at all with Louis, so we've got some work to do there. But the road and street course packages seem to be moving forward a lot. We're certainly pleased with that.

Q. Do you have any idea how significant the modifications are in Turn 4 at Mid-Ohio and how any of the changes done in the off-season will impact you guys?

GRAHAM RAHAL: Well, that's a question I was actually asking on our Teams call, just trying to understand. It looks a lot flatter, a lot less banking. It looks a little bit more open, but I think it's about the same for everybody. We're all going to be finding out together for the first time.

We'll see. Obviously the track was just repaved, what, 18 months ago, so now you've got another section that's going to be fresh. I would anticipate it being quite fast.

My biggest hope is it doesn't affect the racing there. At the end of the back straight was a pretty hard brake zone, and if it's a little bit more open, it might not be so much. But we'll see. It's going to be very hot.

This is probably the most physical race of our entire year, so we'll see what we get.

THE MODERATOR: Graham, tip of the hat to everybody at Mid-Ohio, the investments they've made there in the last 18 months have been pretty substantial.

GRAHAM RAHAL: Definitely. I'm sure the media is looking for a new media center, but maybe that'll happen here soon.

BOBBY RAHAL: I'd like to say that you've got to give them a lot of credit for that end of the back straight there. There have been some big shunts there, and I don't know what it cost. I'm sure it was quite a lot, and there's no real return on that other than the safety of the drivers, which is obviously very valuable. Of all drivers, whoever drives at Mid-Ohio. So that's a huge change --

GRAHAM RAHAL: Motorcycles, too.

BOBBY RAHAL: All credit to Kevin and his group for pulling the trigger and doing it because it's been discussed for many years and nothing ever really happened.

Prior to Kevin Savoree and his group buying the track. So all credit to them.

THE MODERATOR: Also some new fencing and rail put up on the front straight to the drivers' right, too, so a lot of upgrades to the track in the last 18 months or so.

Q. Bobby, I know for the last few years there's been a lot of talk of reshuffling within the team, personnel coming in and out. Where do you feel like the team sits now, and are you close to finding that sweet spot in terms of that bit of more stability?

BOBBY RAHAL: Well, I do believe, and I think our pace recently this year has shown the benefit of the people that we've brought in on the engineering side, Todd Malloy, who's been in INDYCAR for many years, actually engineered Graham in his first win in St. Pete. Todd was with Newman/Haas/Lanigan for many years and he's a really sharp guy, and I think he's brought a lot of discipline and insight into the team and the engineering group, as well as Daniele who engineers Louis. Again, experience, insight. Been very pleased. Ashley Higham, who engineered Graham last year, the last two years, I guess, is really maturing under their guidance, and I just see good things happening there as we build this organization.

I think a big plus, and this is no criticism of any -- for example, Steve Eriksen. I thought Steve did a great job for us during his period of time with us. But Jay Frye has brought an energy into the organization that I think we've needed, to be honest. And Jay is a racer. You can see that in how he works with people and how he does things.

I think we're getting there. I don't know if we're quite there yet, but we're getting there, and we've got a lot of talented young people who are relatively inexperienced but they're gaining a lot of experience quickly, and we're seeing the benefit of that.

So I think with each race, everybody learns that little bit more and things become better. We're getting close. As we go forward, we hope to strengthen the engineering group even more so because obviously that's key, and so so far I'm pretty pleased with our pace this year. We've got a number of top 6 qualifying. We have the speed, now we've just got to put everything together come race day.

Q. Graham, obviously from the driving side, road courses have been strong and street courses to an extent, with the ovals being a bit more inconsistent. Where do those struggles come from on ovals, and how do you translate the highs to more consistency across the board?

GRAHAM RAHAL: Well, that's our biggest struggle right now. I think like for us, Dad just said it, we have -- I don't care what anybody wants to say. We see all the negatives and so on, but the team has made huge strides this year. The downside obviously has been the performance on the ovals for sure.

Having said all of that, it's part of what Dad just said, which is that we're finally getting some stability in the engineering corps that's going to help us a lot. We've had a lot of turnover the last four years. We've had a lot of changes. We've had a lot of different methodologies come through. We've had, honestly, to unwind a lot of the things that we did over the last two years and backtrack on them, even with shocks and dampers and aerodynamics and a lot of things, man.

Unfortunately when you're in this position, your test days are the race weekends. I mean, it's just the fact. For us, we're trying our best to figure out what is going on and why the ovals have been a bit of a struggle, but I think there's some big questions.

After Gateway, we found some things with the underbody of the car, on my car in particular, that the skid wasn't adhered to the chassis correctly and it was sucking down and creating a -- a lot of people used a carbon fiber skid, it was quite common, and we did there, but unfortunately it was sucking down and creating a big loss of downforce underneath the car. So there are things that were sort of obvious that we found like that.

But the reality is, too, there's a lot of things that we're still trying to gain, and I've got to be frank. Even this coming week at Mid-Ohio, there's a lot of things on my test list that maybe ordinarily you wouldn't try on a race weekend but are things that I have to -- as the team leader that I have to test on Friday or Saturday morning to get a direction to go forward the rest of the races.

Lots going on, but I do think Dad is correct that we've made a lot of strides. We're in a much better position. I think RLL is an attractive place for people. There's certainly employees and people that are interested in coming -- engineers, in coming to work with us that maybe weren't over the last few years. Definitely a better environment, and hopefully we can continue to move that forward with Jay and Dad and Mike and the entire organization. I think there's a lot of reasons to be positive.

There's a lot of young guys -- like Ash is a future star. Tim on my car, my assistant, the dude is an absolute stud. I mean, absolute star in the making. I think there's a lot of great young people within the organization that have a really high ceiling and bright future.

We'll keep working towards that.

Q. For you personally, Graham, it's obviously been eight years since you've won a race. From a mentality standpoint, can you talk a bit about the challenge of that and whether you kind of still feel you are at that level of being a regular front-running driver?

GRAHAM RAHAL: Yeah, I think I am -- well, look at the qualifying results. They speak for themselves. I'm sick and tired of hearing, he can't drive, he's only there because of his dad, all this bullshit. It gets old because the reality is the performance and qualifying in particular speaks for itself.

Obviously this year has been an interesting year with Palou and Kirkwood kind of dominating, but the realities of the situation are that it's an extremely competitive field. It's very, very tough, but yet we've been able to rise to the occasion and took the fight to Palou at the Indy GP. For sure, anybody at that stage was taking a knife to a gunfight against him, and we led 49 laps. We did the best job anybody has really done head-to-head, mano-a-mano against him this year, so I felt good about that.

But we've got a lot of work still to be done. That's clear.

It's been too long since we've won. I've got to say I think there's been a lot of close moments that I wish we could take back and do things slightly differently. I mean, people forget in that period of that span, at least two times I should have won the Indy GP alone had it not been for these random BS yellows that worked for Dixon running last the one year and Dixon again another year to make it -- basically it just pitted and it went yellow and it screwed all the leaders. We were winning that race by 20 plus seconds. So it's not like we've been nonexistent. We've been there.

It's just we need to execute, me and the team, at a higher level, and if we do that, there's no doubt that we can take the fight to these other guys, and I think we can do it. We've just got to continue to work and get better.

THE MODERATOR: Todd Malloy was the race engineer when you won your first race at St. Pete, so that roster is pretty deep there at Rahal Letterman Lanigan.

GRAHAM RAHAL: Yep.

BOBBY RAHAL: Not only that, but he won two 500s. Wheldon's engineer when he won.

THE MODERATOR: It's pretty good there.

Q. As an Ohio native, having so much history at the course, what does this honor mean to you, and what was your reaction when you first found out?

BOBBY RAHAL: Well, first off, it means a tremendous amount, being a Buckeye, born in Medina, Ohio, and went to Denison University and lived in Columbus from 1981 to I think 2010 or thereabouts, true sports -- so many great memories, so much time spent in the Buckeye State. I was an Ohio State fan before Graham, by the way.

GRAHAM RAHAL: Not to my level.

BOBBY RAHAL: But yeah, it's awesome. I can't wait for the weekend.

Graham and I, on Saturday nights it's become kind of a tradition to get in our golf carts and drive around the campgrounds, and it's so much fun, and the people are magic. As I said earlier, great fans at Mid-Ohio, and it just keeps getting bigger and bigger.

Somebody was talking about 4th of July. I think it might have been Dave. People have said, oh, you shouldn't have a race on the 4th of July. Well, you'd have to tell that to an awful lot of people who come to Mid-Ohio that weekend, and I just think it makes it more special.

Yeah, very pleased, very honored, very appreciative that Mid-Ohio, Kevin Savoree and his group would ask me, and as I said, I'm really looking forward to a great weekend.

Q. Graham, how cool of a moment would it be to win with your dad having this honor this weekend?

GRAHAM RAHAL: Well, it would always be awesome to win at home. I think for me, it was obviously one of the highlights of my life, not just my career, but my life winning there in 2015 with my dad and most of my family was there, which I anticipate having this weekend as well.

It would be huge. There's nowhere -- I think Dad would probably say the same. There's nowhere we possibly go year in and year out that we have the support like Mid-Ohio. On a personal level, it feels so much more special than any other race. I mean, honestly even in Indy for me sometimes. Indy is huge and it is what it is, but Mid-Ohio hits you in the heart. It hits you in a different place that I don't think any of the others really do.

It's going to be special to be back home with Dad being the grand marshal and knowing all those memories we kind of touched on earlier and all the positive things, the Trueman family and Jim Trueman owning the track for all those years, what he did for my dad, what he did for my family, what he did for people like Clay Filson and Jimmy Prescott that work for us still, that Clay was the mechanic on Jim's sport racer back in the old days, and Clay and Don, it's like a big family event for us every time we go to Mid-Ohio.

I certainly look forward to going back. Like I said, I just hope that we can perform really well for all the local fans and family and friends and everybody that will be out there. It's a special weekend, and I'm excited to get there.

Q. I know you know the last time Ohio State won the national championship, but you won that race there --

GRAHAM RAHAL: I do. That helmet is signed by all the players sitting in my office. I remember every single day. It would be a pretty sweet coincidence, wouldn't it?

Q. Speaking of that, kind of coming into the 2024 College Football Playoff Ryan Day had a lot of scrutiny and all it took was that one championship run to silence that noise. Do you feel like RLL is in a similar position right now where all it takes is one breakthrough moment and it could change the entire narrative of everything you guys have been talking about?

GRAHAM RAHAL: I do. I think RLL is unfairly scrutinized. We've had our challenges. There's no doubt about that.

But at the end of the day, too, we have been competitive. We have been fast at a lot of places. We have shown massive improvement at a lot of places that I sort of don't think that people recognize.

I think it's the modern-day society to rather than let's look at all the positives of what's going on, let's just focus on the negatives. Let's lock in on those negatives and let's be as loud as we can on Twitter or wherever you want to be, and I think the reality is that RLL has vastly improved in many, many areas, and I'm looking forward to the opportunity this weekend to try to prove that again.

If you look at where we've been, if you look at where we're going, if you look at -- like I said, Louis's performance, Devlin has been a brighter spot. Yeah, he's struggling in points. We all are. But Dev has had a lot of pace at a lot of races. I've had guys like McLaughlin even and Will Power and all these guys come up, like damn, that kid can be fast. Well, yeah.

We've been able to turn things around. As I said, we're young. We are young. And we've got to get better on the strategy side. We've got to get better -- last week was a great race for pit stops for the No. 15 guys in particular, did a wonderful job there. The highlight of the race. There's a lot of things we're improving upon. I just don't think people like to give recognition for sort of the positives that teams like us have, and rather they focus on all the negatives.

We'll continue to try to have the Ryan Day sort of motto here: All it takes is one to change your outlook and perspective, and hopefully we can have a great weekend.

To get a win here, particularly to get that eight-year monkey off my back, you guys would have no clue what that would mean. So we'll certainly try our best preparing all week, stay hydrated. It's the first race -- I've lost a lot of weight this year, so it's the first race that I'm actually going to use a cool suit, or been able to, but it looks like it's going to be in the 90s and humid and just a typical Mid-Ohio heater this weekend, so need to be ready because on Sunday it's going to be extremely physical and tiring.

Q. Graham eclipsed that 300-start plateau and now he's got the third longest consecutive starts in the series. Talk about how you've seen your son evolve as his career has gone along and the important things he's accomplished in these milestone starts?

BOBBY RAHAL: Yeah, it's pretty phenomenal, really, 300 starts, or 300 plus now.

He started racing INDYCARs awfully young. There were good days, bad days.

I think one of the challenges when he was at Newman/Haas/Lanigan, obviously a very competitive car, great team, and showed what he could do, and that's why I think what you see this year, particularly on the road courses and street courses, show that talent that we saw way back then.

As all of you know, it takes everything to work in order for a driver to perform at his best. It's not just up to him. That's what drives us at RLL is not just for Graham but for everybody, and we're super pleased with Louis's performances so far this year. For a rookie, just up front running with the big guys. That's just going to get stronger and stronger, I think.

Even Dev performing probably better than many people would expect. I think that's what drives us.

I think one thing about RLL is -- and I've been very fortunate to have guys like David Letterman, Mike Lanigan in particular. The passion for us to be winners is equal to my passion, and so I think that there's -- and we have other friends of the team that share that same passion. That's what drives us.

Yeah, 300 races, whatever, 305, I'm not sure what the actual number is, but that's something to be proud of.

Dixon started very young in INDYCARs, as well, so you can see what's possible. Graham is, what, 36? I mean, heck, I retired at 45. Somebody told me Takuma is like 48 or 49 now. It's really up to Graham. But there's still a lot of runway out there.

It's up to him. But regardless of that, we're going to make sure that we have a team that's capable of winning races.

THE MODERATOR: Graham, I think you hit 300 at St. Louis, so after Road America this would be your 302nd.

GRAHAM RAHAL: I was like, damn, that's actually pretty cool, and then Doug Boles congratulates me on 300 and then immediately announces Scott Dixon at like 485. I was like, wow. Now I'm like nothing again.

But yeah, it's pretty cool, man. I can't -- as Dad said, I think people don't realize I'm still 36. It's been a long time, a lot of -- my body feels it. I can tell you that. A lot of memories, a lot of great relationships, a lot of great people. I wish there were more wins, but there's been a lot of positives, too.

THE MODERATOR: I don't see much gray in the beard, so I think you're good.

GRAHAM RAHAL: Oh, dude, yes. Not in the beard maybe but elsewhere.

Q. Bobby, when little Graham was running around the camp grounds and raising Cain and forging checks, did you think two and a half, three decades later he'd be sitting here as an INDYCAR winner and somebody with 300 yards?

BOBBY RAHAL: No, no, no, not at all. I wasn't really in favor of him driving, so I tried not to think of that potential. But it was pretty clear from a very early age that anybody who knew Graham when he was five or six, they would not be surprised as to where he is today and where he's been over the last 18 years in INDYCAR racing. This is where he's wanted to be, and it's been fun to watch, and I've been very proud of not just what he's done on the track but his charitable activities that he and Courtney have done over the years, his support of people like Justin Wilson's family after poor Justin perished. That's what I'm most proud of, frankly. Just the way he carries himself.

While I wasn't necessarily in favor of it initially, you've got to look back and say, wow, it's been a great career and he's been a great person within and without the series.

Q. Graham, you mentioned earlier that this kind of rough stretch, all that negativity seems to surround you. Nobody seems to talk about the positive. When you're in the midst of a stretch like that, how comforting is it, I guess, to look over in the shop and have somebody like your dad that's still so engrained in your career or in a cone of your race team? What is it like to have somebody like that to lean on professionally but also personally?

GRAHAM RAHAL: Yeah, I think I'm pretty fortunate to obviously have Dad and his insight. I think the whole team is. There's a lot that we can take out of the knowledge base that he has and what he provides.

But the same can be said for a lot of the people involved in the team, right. There are guys that have been out there. Ricardo, who's on our IMSA side, but still, I talk to a lot. As I mentioned Clay Filson earlier, who's been with my dad since they were young guys up and coming, Clay is still my spotter, but I talk to Clay weekly. He's been through the ups and the downs. There's a lot of people that we can lean on to try to continue to improve and continue to get better.

But I think, too, it's a different environment. It's a different world today than when Dad raced. The negativity spread, the social media BS that everybody has got to deal with today wasn't a thing of the past. Certainly you live under a magnifying glass a lot more.

But I'm pretty pleased with the direction that I see the team in. I've got a sense of confidence and positivity about me that I don't think I've had in a long time. Obviously I'm not pleased with where we're at in points, particularly considering how the start of the year really was. We were so competitive and yet we kind of continued to blow opportunities.

But we've still got to look at the positives of where we're at, and we've been a lot better than what we're showing. So hopefully we can turn that around for this weekend and make Dad proud but certainly make Mike Lanigan and Dave and all of our sponsors. You see Fifth Third Bank, my primary sponsor this weekend, probably one of our biggest sponsors of the series based in Cincinnati, Ohio, so a lot of Ohio connections here, and hopefully we can have a really strong one for them.

THE MODERATOR: Bobby, I'll double down on when Dan died, Graham became a real leader in the paddock after that, too.

GRAHAM RAHAL: I'm not here to say much about that stuff, but that starts with my dad. I don't know if Kelly Ann is still on, but to speak about him when I was a kid, Nationwide Children's Hospital, the bone marrow transplant was the Bobby and Debbie Rahal wing. It was a revolutionary facility in its time, and I remember so strongly as a kid in New Albany Country Club, the golf tournaments that Dad used to put in, the events they used to put on. Kroger was a huge sponsor of Dad's at that time and supporter of it.

But what my parents did for the community in Columbus, Ohio, they didn't have billions of dollars to write millions of dollars worth of checks yet they were able to generate millions and millions of dollars for our local community, and obviously another man that was involved in my life in Paul Newman.

I think one of the things that stuck with me the most when I was growing up with my parents and then beyond that, I remember sitting as a 19-year-old with Paul Newman at Sebring. It was my first year really, right before he passed at the end of the 2008, and I remember sitting there and he said, you know, our job in life is to take our star no matter how bright it is and make somebody else's day brighter. To me, those were things that stuck with me. No matter how much you could give back, you should.

We were very fortunate. We crossed a million dollar milestone with Turns For Troops recently, which is huge. We are going to cross a million dollars donated through our golf tournament to One Cure in comparative oncology, which is huge. Our partnership with United Rentals has raised multimillions now to give back to veterans, so we're certainly very, very proud of that. A lot of our sponsors, a lot of our team members, my dad, Mr. Lanigan are very generous, and it certainly helps. So it's not one person that does anything. It's a team effort.

I think all of the RLL team, yes, it's the Graham and Courtney Rahal Foundation, but I think the entire RLL team rallies around this and makes a big difference, which is awesome.

Q. I have a question for Bobby. Being named grand marshal, I'm sure that causes you to kind of look back over the years. Give me one or two of your most memorable moments at Mid-Ohio.

BOBBY RAHAL: Well, I will say just right off the bat, 40 years ago was a long time ago. It's nice to be remembered.

I think that certainly '85, I remember it was going to be a really hot day or was a really hot day. I remember Jim Trueman leaning into the cockpit, and I'm on the grid, I think I was on the front row, and it was hot, and he said, hey, just think of it as a qualifying session, lap by lap by lap. Don't think of it as being 90 laps where you're counting down. Just think of it lap by lap, which I did.

So winning that race was certainly -- we've been competitive in the previous '83, '84 Mid-Ohio races, but that was a big one for sure.

Of course '86 unfortunately Jim was no longer with us, so we couldn't celebrate with him. But that was an important race that kept us towards the championship that year. That was the third race I won that year.

I think that it's hard because I look back, both my IROC victories were at Mid-Ohio, I won a couple IMSA races at Mid-Ohio, one with Jim in '83 in Al Holbert's car. So there's a lot.

As I say, it's really been like my home track, so it's one that we always look forward to going to.

Q. Graham, what do you think it's going to take to get you guys over the top this weekend? What's the one thing you guys can do better that would keep you in front?

GRAHAM RAHAL: Yeah, I think race pace and strategy. Our team took a huge shift. We used to be the Sunday team, and we struggled with qualifying. Obviously now our qualifying pace is better, but we need to get our race pace back into the ballgame to where we can wear guys down in the race.

Not to say it wasn't great the last couple of races, but I think that's our biggest challenge right now. We've got to make sure our strategy is on point, but we also have to make sure that our race pace is good enough that we can keep guys at bay all the time.

Indy GP, for instance, I knew we had the outright space, but when Palou was behind me, you could see the ease with which he could do the speed. He was under my gearbox for lap after lap after lap after lap. Obviously you're driving flawlessly to try to keep him behind, but the speed was just too, too much.

That's areas that we've got to get better, and I think we certainly can.

THE MODERATOR: Bobby and Graham, thanks for your time. Safe travels. We'll see you at Mid-Ohio.

BOBBY RAHAL: Hope to see all of you folks on the call at Mid-Ohio and we can chat then because I know some of you had questions, so anytime.