Photo Credit: Ashley McCubbin
Graham Rahal, driver of the No. 15 Gehl/DA Lubricant Honda, started out his day for the Kohler Grand Prix at Road America with electrical issues.
“It’s a weird scenario,” he said. “I guess one of the Antenna that is supplied was faulty. It was frying all of our (data) logger boxes. It was like the car didn’t even exist. You plug in, do absolutely nothing. Couldn’t get a setup. We tried everything we could.
“Then we thought maybe it was the entire (wiring) loom and it was going to end our session completely. Like I said before, we lost a set of tires because we couldn’t get the five laps in in the 20 minutes. We were kind of behind an eight ball. The car was decent. It hurt us, but we were able to rebound pretty well.”
The Columbus, Ohio native has laps at Road America as he was part of the group of drivers that tested at Road America earlier this month.
“When we tested here a couple weeks ago, I don’t know, we did like 500 miles or 493 miles,” he said. “We were doing a lot of brake testing. Honestly, we didn’t get to work on the car very much til the very end.
“The setup, we had to adapt a little bit. Guys that went out this morning, that tested, were struggling. A ton of us were a little bit off pace. At the end we did a 3.0, at the test we did a 2.8. We’re pretty close.
Road America has a lot of family history for the Rahal family, something Rahal looks to add to this weekend.
“Well, I was telling people, somebody was asking me earlier, I spent more time here than I spent at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in my life,” he said. “This place is pretty cool for the Rahal family. My grandparents won’t be here this weekend, but they’re only two hours down the road. Yeah, I mean, my dad grew up coming here watching my grandpa race. I did the same with my dad.
“It’s funny. Yesterday I went out on the scooter, cruised around for a little bit. It brought back so many old memories. It’s a special place for us, without a doubt.”
