"He was a silent partner for 10 years": When Graham Rahal revealed how David Letterman sneakily fueled his IndyCar passion

Graham Rahal, back in the day, talked about the Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing co-owner, David Letterman. In 2015, he shared how Letterman was a silent partner in the team for a number of years after coming on board in the early 1990s.

The Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, since its inception in 1992, has amassed decent success in the IndyCar series. It has so far claimed a drivers' championship (1992, CART) and two Indy 500 victories.

The outfit is jointly owned by Graham Rahal's father, Bobby Rahal, entrepreneur Michael Lanigan, and the well-renowned American television host/writer, David Letterman.

In June 2015, Graham talked about David fueling his passion via the Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing IndyCar team. In line with this, he added the following via an interaction on The Rich Eisen Show:

"Dave's a pretty cool guy. His passion has been IndyCar racing. He's from Broad Ripple, which is like 10 minutes from downtown Indy."

"In the early 80s, he met my dad, and decided if he ever wanted to be involved in racing, [he was] going to, you know, join up with Dad, and have a team. So, he actually bought in in the early 90s, was just a silent partner for probably 10 or 12 years before his name came out... But he's a lot of fun."

Graham Rahal has been competing in America's highest class of open-wheel racing since 2018 and has so far amassed six Grand Prix wins, 29 podiums, and five pole positions. His best overall finish to date has been fourth place, which came in the 2015 season.

In 2024, the 36-year-old managed a P18 finish in the drivers' standings behind Romain Grosjean with 251 points.

Graham Rahal managed a P20 finish in XPEL Grand Prix at Road America

Graham Rahal is one of the most experienced drivers on the IndyCar grid with over 270 appearances to his name. In the recent XPEL Grand Prix at Road America, he managed a disappointing P20 finish despite starting the race from P6 on the grid.

In line with this, he shared his feelings on the 55-lap race via a post-race interaction and said (via RLL):

“It wasn’t a great race for us. It was average. All of the yellows really affected us at the start because we needed that stint to go long on the new primary tires. Instead, we had to do long stints on both of the used alternates and then on the new alternates, which was okay but you were doing such crazy fuel saving that you weren’t able to maximize the grip of the reds. It was so slow on the straightaways and that really hurt me too. Every restart, I was a sitting duck."

As already mentioned above, Rahal managed a P18 finish in the 2024 drivers' standings. After the first nine races in the ongoing 2025 season, he is in 19th place with 133 points.

Taking this into consideration, he would ideally look to finish higher in the standings. Rahal is currently behind the two-time IndyCar champion Josef Newgarden, who has so far managed 137 points.