[From the NTT INDYCAR SERIES weekly newsletter]
RRDC President Bobby Rahal’s Rahal Letterman Lanigan (RLL) racing team will celebrate its milestone 30th anniversary with the start of the 2021 season. The team, which began competing in 1992, will field two cars each in the NTT INDYCAR SERIES and GTLM-class of the International Motor Sports Association’s (IMSA) WeatherTech SportsCar Championship this year.
The team’s two-car NTT INDYCAR SERIES lineup of Graham Rahal and Takuma Sato will open their season April 18 at the Honda Indy Grand Prix of Alabama at Barber Motorsports Park, where they are also the defending pole and race winners.
Takuma Sato (Left) and Graham Rahal will drive the two RLL Indycar entries in 2021. (INDYCAR image]
In the first year of competition in 1992, Bobby Rahal brought then-named Rahal Hogan Racing its first victory in Round 2 in Phoenix and went on to win another three times in Detroit, New Hampshire and Nazareth to secure Rahal’s third INDYCAR SERIES title and the team’s first. Since then, highlights include wins in the 2004 and 2020 Indianapolis 500 races, with Buddy Rice and Takuma Sato, respectively, and 500-mile wins by Jimmy Vasser (2002) and Graham Rahal (2015) at Auto Club Speedway, among others. BMW Team RLL brought the team GT titles in 2010 and 2011, as well as back-to-back wins in the 2019 and 2020 Rolex 24 at Daytona, 12 Hours of Sebring wins in 2011 and 2012 and Petit Le Mans in 2017, among others.
The team name changed from Rahal Hogan Racing in 1996 to Team Rahal when late night television icon David Letterman, who met Rahal after his 1986 Indy 500 win, became a partner. His name was added in 2004, and the team became known as Rahal Letterman Racing. Since 2011, the team has competed as Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing with the addition of businessman Mike Lanigan as a co-owner.
Bobby Rahal (Left) with RLL partners David Letterman and Mike Lanigan. [INDYCAR image]
To celebrate the anniversary, RLL has created a commemorative logo that will be present on team equipment and merchandise. The team will hold celebratory events throughout the season and will highlight key moments of their history on its social media channels.
Also in 2021, the team will build a 115,000 square-foot facility on 13 acres southeast of the downtown Indianapolis area in Zionsville and will consolidate its existing INDYCAR SERIES operations in Brownsburg, as well as its IMSA operations in Hilliard, Ohio. The new building will feature office and event space as well as automotive R&D and light manufacturing operations to support the dynamic functions of RLL’s racing teams. The new headquarters is expected to be fully operational by early 2022.
