Graham Rahal Breaks Through, New Young Star On The Rise

Congratulations are in order for Graham Rahal when he won the St. Petersburg Indy car race this past Sunday.

It was a race that fell into “outright crazy” category, especially at the start. The first street race of the newly combined series started under a torrential tropical downpour.

Rain always make for tricky conditions in a race, and in this case, only made things VERY tricky.

For starters, all of the former Champcar drivers had dozens of street races under their belts, while the IRL regulars had 6 or 8 total. The same can also be said concerning the rain, since the last time the Champ guys ran in ran was a few months ago, whereas the last time for the IRL guys was … years? never? Hell, it’s been so long even I can’t remember.

And so, things started off under a safety car for 8 or 10 laps, and THEN they threw the green flag … spins, slides, near misses with other cars, near misses with large concrete barriers, near misses with large concrete barriers AND other cars … hectic hectic crazy hectic.

And, by the time the checker flew, who was on top?

Young Graham Rahal, that’s who.

Son of Indy 500 winner and three-time CART champion Bobby Rahal, Graham has the genetic makeup, and he had shown great promise last year as Sebastian Bourdais’ teammate, and just two races into this year’s season (the first season of the combined open wheel series) Graham made good on those promises.

Craziness, passing, high speed wheel to wheel action, The Indy 500 on the horizon and young American talent on the rise?

This is going to be good.

Filed Under: Racing