Bobby Rahal named Grand Marshal of the Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio

Bobby Rahal has been named Grand Mar­shal of The Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio on Sun­day, August 5.

Rahal has a spe­cial bond with Mid-Ohio, attend­ing his first race there with his father in the track’s open­ing year of 1962, and even­tu­ally going on to drive Indy cars at the track for sev­eral races under True­S­ports. Rahal will add the Grand Mar­shal duties to his already busy week­end as a team owner and race strate­gist in both the Amer­i­can Le Mans Series and the IZOD Indy­Car Series. His son, Gra­ham, will be rac­ing the No. 38 Ser­vice Cen­tral Honda for Tar­get Chip Gan­nassi Racing.

“We are hon­ored to have Bobby Rahal as the Grand Mar­shal of the 2012 Honda Indy 200 at Mid-Ohio,” said Craig Rust, pres­i­dent of Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course. “Bobby has truly been one of Mid-Ohio’s great­est ambas­sadors and it’s great that we can acknowl­edge his efforts over the years with this honor.”

Rahal has won sev­eral times at Mid-Ohio with a pair of wins in IMSA GT, IROC and of course CART. The Ohioan won the Indy 500 as dri­ver in 1986 for True­S­ports, the pre­vi­ous own­ers of Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course and also has three CART cham­pi­onships to his name.

“I feel such a con­nec­tion to Mid-Ohio. I went to the first race in 1962 with my father 50 years ago, which is hard to believe. I have so many great mem­o­ries since then between see­ing some great rac­ing to win­ning there myself to being part of True­S­ports and see­ing Jim Trueman’s vision of a spectator-friendly track come to life and Jim’s mark on the track is still present today,” said Rahal. “I have always got­ten such great sup­port from the fans there and feel a big con­nec­tion to the place so it is an honor to have the chance to serve as Grand Mar­shal of this event.”

The Mor­row County-based track hosts the biggest motor­sport event in the state this week­end with the co-headlined Mid-Ohio Sports Car Chal­lenge and The Honda Indy® 200 at Mid-Ohio fea­tur­ing the Amer­i­can Le Mans Series pre­sented by Tequila Patron and the IZOD Indy­Car Series.

Week­end and daily Gen­eral Admis­sion tick­ets are avail­able at the gate, start­ing at $80 for the week­end and $50 for race day. Gen­eral park­ing is free and chil­dren 12 and under are also admit­ted free. Visit midohio.com any­time or call 800-MID-OHIO (643‑6446) Mon­day through Fri­day from 8 a.m.- 5 p.m. for more information.

Posted by Rob Hamilton on Aug 2 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.