Who are Graham Rahal's parents? Meet IndyCar legend Bobby Rahal and his ex-wife Debi

IndyCar star Graham Rahal is the son of three-time American open-wheel racing series champion Bobby Rahal and Debi Rahal. Debi was Bobby’s first wife as the two got married in 1980, just a couple of years before the three-time CART (now IndyCar) champion made his American open-wheel racing series debut.

Bobby Rahal and Debi Rahal got married in 1980, when the former was 27 years old and fresh off his Formula 2 debut season in 1979. The two were married for over two decades before they divorced in 2003. Bobby and Debi have four children together, out of which only Graham Rahal continued in his father's footsteps. Graham Rahal was born nine years after Bobby and Debi’s marriage and is their second-oldest child, with Michaela being their first child, who was adopted in 1986.

Bobby Rahal began professional racing in 1974 in the SCCA National Championship before he made his F1 debut in 1978 for Walter Wolff Racing. He then went on to race in the European F1 championship for the following year before joining the PPG CART series (now IndyCar) in 1982.

Rolex 24 at Daytona - Source: Getty

Bobby Rahal was immensely successful in CART and went on to win three championships in 1986, 1987, and 1992. The 72-year-old won 24 races (including the 1986 Indy 500) and stood on the podium 88 times during his IndyCar career before retiring from the sport at the end of 1998.

Rahal, along with Carl Hogan, acquired the assets of Pat Patrick Racing Team to form his own team for the 1992 season and became an owner-driver. Hogan left the team after 1995, with David Letterman acquiring a minority stake in the team. The team is currently known as the Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing team.

After Bobby Rahal and Debi separated in 2003, and married Johanna Maher on September 30, 2006. Bobby and Johanna have been married for nearly two decades now.

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Graham Rahal's mother, Debi Rahal, on how Bobby got her “hooked” on racing

Graham Rahal's mother, Debi, wasn't fond of racing before she married his father, Bobby, but became hooked on the sport afterwards. Debi Rahal came out during an interview from 1987, when she and Bobby Rahal were still married, as she detailed how racing became a part of her life as well.

“It’s like a disease and you just become hooked. I had never been to a race. I had seen part of Indy on TV, but that’s all. As soon as I met Bobby, that was it. It became my life as well as his,” said Debi Rahal (via Los Angeles Times).

Graham Rahal followed in his father's footsteps and made his American open-wheel racing series debut in 2007. He raced for a multitude of teams, including Chip Ganassi, before joining his father's team, Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, in 2013.