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IndyCar
IN THE COCKPIT: Graham Rahal, Long Beach
The moment I turned the first lap in the race, I knew we had something good to work with on the No. 38 Service Central car. I just knew it.
Graham Rahal  |  Posted April 22, 2011  
Rahal navigates the Turn 11 hairpin at Long Beach. (Marshall Pruett)
Ganassi Racing.com


Our weekend started off fairly positive, but it quickly went in a different direction. We lost our direction in the afternoon on Friday, got it back somewhat Saturday morning but then drifted a bit in qualifying. I would say we spent most of our weekend recovering, and it didn’t feel like we were on top of things until we got to the race.

No matter how much I’d love to say that everything was perfect and we had no challenges, sometimes a race weekend has a lot of ups and downs to deal with. You want them to go smoothly, but when they don’t, you have to buckle in and just believe in your team and the solutions they will provide to make things better. By Sunday, I knew we’d climbed that mountain and were ready to sail down the other side.

The moment I turned the first lap in the race, I knew we had something good to work with on the No. 38 Service Central car. I just knew it. I was just trying to be patient early and save some fuel, so I passed some cars, played it safe and really focused on getting to the second half of the race before I started pushing forward. Long Beach is one of those tracks where surviving the first half of the race is just so, so important.

We were quicker than Ryan Briscoe and a lot of the guys in the front of the group, and I felt really good about that. Then we had a full course yellow and that took away the advantage we were about to spring on people. All the extra fuel we’d saved wasn’t needed, so things were reversed a bit where we came out of the pits towards the back after we had contact with Vitor Meira leaving the pits, which was a shame.

We came in and had a minor fueling delay, so when that happened, I waited and launched when I was given the signal. When that happened, I came out right into Meira’s path and we hit wheel-to-wheel. We were both lucky that neither car had much damage. It threw me up in the air, and by the time I landed, I was pointed at the pit wall. It was a pretty dramatic thing to experience from inside the car, but we got pointed in the right direction and took off.

That gave us a lot of work to do all over again, but like I said, our car was fast and I was able to save fuel while passing a bunch of cars all over again. We pitted again, and I came out towards the bottom of the top 10, but we were feeling pretty good about ourselves.
As Rahal and the Service Central crew log more miles together, their speed on pit lane and on the race track continues to increase. (Marshall Pruett)

Then we had the restart that everyone’s talking about where the Penske cars came together and Scott Dixon’s car sustained damage. All of a sudden, we’re fifth or sixth and really feeling good about ourselves.

Mike Conway, who was right in front of me, was really moving at that point and we were headed up to Turn 6, and he went through there with Takuma Sato side-by-side. So I took my normal line—I went down to the apex, turned left, and the next thing I know, I’m missing part of my front wing and have a flat tire.

It happened in an instant and I haven’t seen any replays of it, but the best description I can give from my perspective is that I got hit at the exit of the corner, and it seems to me that Sato just chose to change lanes from left to right and thought he was clear to do so. It happened so fast, but I don’t think he knew I was there. I can’t point the finger at him because it wasn’t on purpose as far as I’m concerned, but it was so disappointing for our entire Service Central Chip Ganassi Racing team.

The entire stint before the contact, Conway was behind me and I was also pulling away from him. I had only passed cars during the race; I was never passed, which made everyone happy. And seeing how close we’d run with Conway towards the end, it gave us enough of a taste of what kind of result we can accomplish together. It also made losing out on a great finish that much more disappointing.

After the race, I told all of my Service Central crew guys that we had a lot to be positive about. We learned a lot, we overcame a lot of hurdles during the weekend, we never let our spirits get down and we were right there with the guy who eventually won the race. We didn’t get the result they deserved, but we showed our potential, and for that, we’ll go into the next race at Brazil feeling very encouraged.

Looking at the first three races so far, you could say that we have the speed, but not the results. The season is still young and there are a lot more races left to run, but I’m convinced that before the championship is over, we’ll have the speed and results to make everyone at Service Central and at Chip Ganassi Racing proud.

~Graham

Graham Rahal grew up attending racetracks around the world with his father, 1986 Indianapolis 500 winner Bobby Rahal. He cut his teeth in karting and moved up the formula ranks. In 2008, a victory at St. Petersburg -- in his IndyCar Series debut -- made him the youngest winner in major open-wheel racing history.

For 2011, Rahal joins Service Central Chip Ganassi Racing as driver of the No. 38 Service Central Indy car alongside teammate Charlie Kimball in the No. 83 Novo Nordisk car for Novo Nordisk Chip Ganassi Racing, as the part of the off-season expansion for team owner Chip Ganassi with a second two-car team.

Learn more about Graham at ChipGanassiRacing.com, and follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/GrahamRahal.
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