Bobby Rahal Q&A

Last year, Rahal was tabbed by the retiring Neil Ressler to turn around the Jaguar Formula 1 team. But his power base was diluted when Ressler's replacement, Wolfgang Reitzle, brought in Niki Lauda as his own candidate to fix Jaguar's problems. The Rahal/Lauda management partnership lasted less than six months before Rahal found himself the odd man out. Rahal was back with his Champ Car team at Vancouver, where Autosport.com's John Oreovicz spoke to him.



"I enjoyed it. It certainly gave me some valuable insights on how maybe we can do things a little bit differently or focus on things a bit differently here. It's a very heady world because of the amount of dollars involved and the amount that you have to do, having to build an entire car and all the processes and people that are entailed in such a venture. You're looking for maximum performance and the budgets allow you to take things to a limit that you don't necessarily have here. That doesn't make the racing any better. It's almost secondary to the show. But it's been interesting to have been a part of it. I was enjoying it. It was a hell of a lot of work, and a lot of pressure. But I think if the opportunity would come back again I'd do it again. I don't think I regret anything about it."



"I was brought in by Neil Ressler to do a job, and Neil retired. Wolfgang Reitzle brought in Niki Lauda to head up the three groups that Neil had been heading up, and I think in the end Dr Reitzle had entrusted his faith in Niki and he felt he had to go with that. I made it clear there could be only be one boss and I felt that if I didn't have the support... well, you can't be accountable if you're not given the power. One guy needs to be calling the shots. It doesn't do the team any good to have two bosses. Niki's and my management styles are very different, and ultimately, I think had my champions remained there I would probably still be there, but my champions weren't there. It happens all the time in business. A guy brings a new team in and it's his decision. He wants those people accountable to him and the old team is redundant, and I was the old team."



"I wouldn't do anything differently. I think I made clear that it was a work in progress and it would take three to five years. Everybody bought into that at the time. I said this year was a year to get our house in order and I think we were doing that. The reality in Formula 1 is that the system perpetuates the status quo. The most successful teams have the most money and the more money you have the more competitive you will be and the quicker you can be competitive. The rules are such that cubic dollars create performance whereas in CART the rules are such that at some point you can spend all the money in the world but the return on that investment gets smaller and smaller the more you spend. It's sort of a declining relationship."



"It's a very different world. The CART world is based on a model of accessibility, whether it's accessible to compete or for the fans to get close. Formula 1 is based on exclusivity. In fact, I think fans are viewed as a necessary evil. A paddock area is a very sterile experience in Formula 1 because there are no fans, no nothing. It's a very exclusive world. It's very different in from CART in that regard. If you really want to extend it out to the ridiculous it's very much like their societies there. There's very much of an exclusive nature to them because of the make-up of society, whereas accessibility is all part of the American mantra and way of life. There are some aspects of Formula 1 that I think are quite good. The television production, controlling how the sport is disseminated in terms of television and other things is quite good. But again, there's such a huge amount of money that it's able to afford it a type of coverage that just doesn't make financial sense but is great for the sport. The media coverage in general, particularly in England, is much greater. There's much more of a sensationalist aspect to it than you have here in America. That's not across the board because there are some journalists that make sure the facts are made clear, but there are some journalists that won't allow the facts to get in the way of a good story."



"There were so many skeletons in the closet. Poor Joe walked in and instead of being able to take a sport and go forward with it, the first thing he had to do was the get the company out of some of the holes that were dug for it. I'm not sure that Joe or any of the candidates that we interviewed quite truly appreciated just how many potholes there were to fill. Joe has had nothing but crap to have to deal with, frankly. I think he's done quite a good job because it's been a pretty thankless task. You don't get much glory solving some issue that's been hanging in the closet for two or three years. So given everything that had to be done, I think Joe's done a good job. I still think he needs quite a bit of help, which is happening apparently. Given some of the personal attacks that Joe has had to endure by some people who don't necessarily agree with the way he's doing some things, I'm surprised he's still here. I think if I had been him I would have told everybody to take a hike."



"I think CART's strength are the venues it has, like Montreal, Toronto and Long Beach. I think road courses and street courses are a viable form of motorsport. The world isn't just ovals. Frankly, I'm very uncomfortable with a series that's all ovals. I think it's pretty dangerous in an open-wheel car in particular. The risk factor is considerably greater. There used to be this idea that we had to be 50-50 between ovals and road courses. I don't buy the idea that we have to live up to a percentage mandate just to race at an oval or a road course. You race at the venues that are promoted the best, that are in the right markets, that are in the right places - period. It doesn't matter to me if it's a road course or an oval or a street circuit. The strength of the promoter and the market are to me the two main factors to determine where you should go. And I think the CART series has some strong venues. Look at the crowd at Mid-Ohio, and I'm told they had a great crowd at Elkhart Lake. You can't deny that, or deny the value of that. We have to keep building on that and continue to find the right venues. I think Denver will be great, and the last time we raced in downtown Miami it drew a huge crowd. We need to understand our strengths and just go after it without trying to be something we shouldn't be."



"I think we ought to adopt the IRL spec, even if you bump the rev limiter up a bit to get more power. There's always going to be a segment that says that high tech is the draw. But for the mass, and to grow the sport we have to meet a much broader audience. That audience doesn't really care whether you have three valves per cylinder or four. What they care about is the show, is their heroes, and whether the sport is being merchandised by the sponsors that participate. So I'm less inclined to get hung up by the mechanical aspects. The Can-Am was the most free mechanical series in the world, and if that was the draw, why did it disappear a long time ago?"



"My priorities are to strengthen this team, financially and otherwise. I want to really attack going out to get more sponsorship. Another priority is to build CART and open-wheel racing. I don't want to be an elected official or anything like that, but I believe strongly in this series and this form of racing. To be sure, this series has had lots of issues and will continue to do so. We need to come up with some sort of mechanism to allow teams to compete across borders between the IRL and CART. More and more teams will go to Indy; we're going to be going to Indy next year. That's only going to increase the need for a solution. I think you need to have that for open-wheel racing to take its rightful place."