By Andrew Cutler
February 22 2008

The origins of what is now Rahal-Letterman Racing dates back to 1992, when then CART driver Bobby Rahal & businessman Carl Hogan bought the assests of the former Patrick Racing squad. The new team found instant success, with Rahal earning his third CART series title that year.

The following year saw the squad buy up the remaines of the Truesports team, the squad Rahal had driven for when he won the CART titles in '86 & '87. That acquisition proved - temporarily - to be a mis-step, however, as Rahal tried to make the outfit's in-house designed chassis into a legitimate competitor on the circut: a goal that he was unable to achieve. In 1994 the Rahal-Hogan squad helped to bring Honda engines into CART, but dropped them at season's end after lackluster results.

Falling back on "'tried & true" engines and chassis, the team solidered on through the next decade with Rahal in one car, until his retirement after the 1998 season, and drivers such as Bryan Herta, Kenny Brack, Max Papis and Michel Jourdain Jr. also getting seat time.

By 2004 Rahal and Hogan had ended their business relationship, and late night T.V. talkshow host - and former Indianapolis resident - David Letterman bought into the team, which made the jump over to the IRL that year. The squad won a slightly rain-shortened Indy 500 in '04 with driver Buddy Rice. In '05 Rahal-Letterman signed Danica Patrick to join Rice and Vitor Meira in a three car effort. Her impressive fourth-place finish at Indy marked the begining of a marketing phenomenon. Unfortunately, the squad's allegiance to the Panoz chassis throughout '05 & the better part of '06 left them increasingly unable to compete against the teams that were using Dallaras, and their fortunes sank. After the '06 season wrapped up, Patrick announced that she was leaving for the Andretti-Green squad.

After signing Scott Sharp, the IRL's most experienced driver, Rahal-Letterman hoped that 2007 would be a turn-around year. While Sharp showed that the team still had some life in it, he wasn't happy with what he precieved to be their lack of effort and at season's end he announced that he was walking away. This brought about a lawsuit from Rahal-Letterman, who felt that he was in violation of his contract. While the preliminary court ruling seems to favor Rahal-Letterman, this legal situation is still ongoing as we speak. 

The brightest spot of the squad's 2007 season came courtesy of driver Ryan-Hunter Reay, who was tapped to replace Jeff Simmons at mid-season and still managed to claim Rookie of the Year honors. Ryan is currently the only announced driver for the 2008 season. It is unclear at present whether or not Rahal-Letterman will field a second car on a full-time basis.