Graham Rahal enters season with new sponsor and high expectations

Over the off-season, Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing signed a new sponsor in the form of the National Guard for Graham Rahal’s IndyCar. Rahal says the addition of the National Guard as a sponsor brings excitement to the team and a lot of pride.

“There is quite a lot of responsibility for us,” Rahal added. “On-track performance is key.  We want to do a good job.  But off-track performance is equally as important to the National Guard and we need to make sure the main goals of recruiting and retention are things we carry through each and every day and do the best we can to help them out, try to keep them in the sport as long as we can.

“They’re a great partner for us already.  We’re extremely excited about all the opportunities that are coming.  Kathy and Brian Marks who lead the team, seems like there’s something new coming up every day.  Pretty new and exciting for us as a team.”

Rahal added that he knows the sponsorship comes with a lot of responsibility off-track in promoting the Guard, however he is ready for what is to come.

“There’s a lot of stuff I’m extremely thrilled to go and do, visits to Walter Reed and things like that that are going to be I’m sure very humbling for me,” he continued. “I don’t think anything they’re asking is going to keep us too occupied.  I think everybody is excited to get out there and do everything we can do help.

“Is it busier than my sponsors in the past?  Yes, but it should be.  I think the National Guard is more important than anything I’ve represented in the past.  Hopefully we can do a great job for them.”

With the new sponsorship, Rahal feels that it will bring RLL up to the level that Team Penske, Chip Ganassi Racing and Andretti Autosport are at with regards to being able to expand their racing programs. RLL has already gone ahead with hiring a brand new engineering staff, with the exception of Eddie Jones who is still with the team.

“Wayne, my assistant last year, is going to move over and just do shocks this year.  Everything has been completely turned upside down.  A lot of new faces,” Rahal explained. “This is going to allow us to continue to invest in those sorts of people we need, the programs, that sort of thing.

“If you look at us last year, we never really did any development at all, never did any shock development.  Coming from Ganassi where I was trying four different pairs of shocks every single weekend, it was completely different to come to this team where we never had an option.  We ran the same ones every single track, every single race.
Pretty different.  Takes quite an invtestment.  I think we’re going to be to that point now.”

Part of the new changes including the addition of Bill Pappas, who worked with Justin Wilson last year. Part of the off-season development has been focused on getting the communication going.

“Every driver has his own little – I don’t know – desires what he wants out of the racecar,” Rahal said. “Luckily Justin Wilson is very similar to me, so Bill already has a pretty good understanding of that.  But there’s going to be a lot for us to develop.

“As I mentioned a little bit earlier, the first time I think we’re going to get on an oval is right after Long Beach, which I think we’re supposed to go test at Texas.  That will be right before Barber, then of course the 500.  That will be the first time I’ll do any laps on an oval to see how different the car is.”

The off-season has also been helping Honda develop their twin-turbo motor, versus the single-turbo that they ran last year. Rahal feels happy with the motor at this point, stating that it’s feels good off the corners and there’s not a lot of boost lap.

“I think it should be a huge performance,” Rahal commented. “I don’t think we will see it on a road course, but at Indy.  Everybody knows how we struggled there, I think that’s where we should see the biggest performance gain.”