Bobby Rahal

If I'm going to pick any one race that stands out in my mind, it's got to be the Indy 500 in 1986, because Jim True-man, my team owner, died of cancer about ten days later. Winning Indy had always been a dream of his.

We qualified well, and I was fourth on the grid after actually setting the second quickest time of the month on qualifying morning, so things were looking really good. And then of course on the race weekend, which was Jim's birthday, it was rained out, so we were sitting around for three days knowing that if it cleared up at any moment we could be racing. We sat in that pressure cooker for three days like that, before they finally cancelled it until the next weekend. That was a great relief; you could go home, recharge the batteries, have another go.

When it finally started, Michael Andretti ran off for a little bit, before we caught him again. For most of the race after that it was either Rick Mears leading, or me leading or Kevin Cogan leading. It was a see-saw thing because at pitstops I would beat Rick coming out of the pits, and at the restart there would be two or three cars between us. And he was not going well in traffic, nobody was, because of the turbulence.

So I'd get something like a 12secs lead, which is a long time there, and then we'd go to the next pitstop, when he might get out ahead of me and get a lead. Once I'd fought my way through traffic, I could start bringing the gap down, and you really had to drive hard to do that.

So it was just a see-saw all day long, and of course there were very few yellows, so it was really kind of fun, because that wasn't determining the outcome. If anything was determining the outcome, it was good pit work, and I know we beat Rick's Penske guys out a number of times. And there were no real incidents, nobody got hurt.

I couldn't believe how quickly the race was being run. The biggest problem was just in traffic with the turbulence. I know on lap 180 or so I was behind Rick and there was somebody ahead of him. As we went into Turn 11 was damn near on the brakes, because the front end just picked up and was heading straight for the wall! That was tough...

But I must say my car was working well down low on the track, so in Turn 2 I was always below the line, and in Turn 3 I could use some of the apron.

As long as the guy I was lapping stayed a little bit high I could get a good run at him, and I don't think Rick was able to do that. Cogan passed me towards the end, and I was really forced to conserve my fuel. I got caught in traffic and he got 3secs on me, but I quickly got back with him. And that's when the last yellow came out.

People say I got the jump on Kevin at the green. I guess that will be a much argued point, for time immemorial. But when the yellow comes out, it's like a new race. I've always said that Indy is not one race but about seven; it seems like you just race from yellow to yellow. With just two laps to go, you obviously don't hold back, do you?

I was able to get into Kevin's draft coming off Turn 4 to take the restart on lap 198. He had to back off a little bit or scrub off speed or something, and I was able to get through a little cleaner and get by him, and of course there was no one ahead of me, so I just went like hell and did those two laps.

I could see the crowd of course. I get goosebumps just thinking about it now, because for an American, Indy is like winning the British GP is for an Englishman. When you win there, there are so many emotions going through you. But I think the biggest thing 1 felt was relief. In America, it doesn't matter what you do, because until you win Indianapolis you haven't done anything. It almost makes your career immortal in the USA, if not the world to some degree.

Obviously, on reflection, it's a moment I'm very proud of. Certainly there are races which are as difficult if not more so to win from a physical standpoint, but I think where Indy is so different is that you've been there for three weeks in that pressure cooker, and it's a real accomplishment to have kept your wits about you for that whole period of time.

But it was a bitter-sweet situation, because I'd look at Jim and know that had he been healthy, he really would have been able to enjoy the victory. Don't get me wrong, we enjoyed it, but there was that cloud, because you knew that it was going to be his last race, and he was a guy who had been so good to me over so many years. He was a very proud man, and although he was very weak, I think he was very much savouring the moment. I think he had willed himself to live to see that event.

I've always said that if Hollywood had written such a script, nobody would have believed it...