Q&A: Graham Rahal.

Wednesday, 16th April 2008

Fresh from winning his first-ever IndyCar Series race, on the streets of St Petersburg, Graham Rahal has the chance to go back-to-back in two different cars, but snatch the overall IRL points lead, in the Long Beach Grand Prix.

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Every single day, it's been quite tough, so I don't even know how many interviews I've done, but they are so spread out through the day that it's even tough to have a little time to work out to be honest

So it's been busy but you know, as I said to many people, if this is the price you've got to pay for winning, I'm more than happy to take it.

Q:
Well, tell us about your memories about the Toyota Grand Prix last year, and obviously similar to this year actually, you started out disappointed with the race in Las Vegas where you didn't do well, and then you bounced back and had a pretty decent Long Beach. Tell us a little bit about that race and your memories of Long Beach.

GR:
Well, you know, I've gone to Long Beach many, many times, and been very close friends with the owner of a bar there called Smooth's, and my father, he's one of my dad's best friends. As kids we used to go and spend a lot of time out there with John's kids, and so obviously there was a lot of time spent in Long Beach. So you always have fond memories being there.

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And then of course in Atlantic, we had a pretty good run and even better in Champ Car. I think it was our first good qualifying session, obviously, because Las Vegas for us was disappointing, but you know, I look forward to going there and yet again, I think that it's a chance for us to win.

Obviously the team is on a bit of a high right now and we don't want to ever be overconfident, but I think that, you know, we really did feel that we were going to have an opportunity to win a championship this year in the Champ Car series. So now that it's one series, obviously it's a little bit tougher for us.

But Long Beach is a place where we feel we need to capitalize on our strengths, and of course, you know, it's a great circuit and looking forward to being part of it.

Q:
I'm sure you're proud to come back, and some old guy named Rahal is going to be the grand marshal, but that guy, he never won this race; in fact, he finished second four times. So you definitely have to one up the old man here, right?

GR:
Like I said, it's a great opportunity. It would be nice to go two for two, and especially, you know, since it is for points. I think that you know it is possible that we could leave there leading points.