STEAM CORNERS, Ohio -- Graham Rahal gave the Verizon IndyCar Series a day it has wanted and needed for a long time Sunday at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course.
Rahal, who grew up about 40 miles away in suburban Columbus, won the Honda 200 at Mid-Ohio driving a car owned by his father, three-time Indy car champion Bobby Rahal.
The fairytale storyline unfolded on a picture-perfect day that lured Mid-Ohio's largest Indy car crowd in more than a decade, since the days of the 1,000-horsepower cars that ruled the CART-sanctioned series in its 1990s heyday.
It's symbolic that Rahal broke through for such an important victory for himself and the current IndyCar Series on the same weekend that the Mid-Ohio track record, set by modern era legend Dario Franchitti in 1999 and matched by Gil de Ferran a year later, was finally eclipsed by the new generation of aero-dominated Indy cars.
IndyCar Series fans and management have been hoping and praying for nearly a decade that Rahal and Marco Andretti would develop into champion stars like their fathers -- and grandfather, in Andretti's case.
This year, Rahal is finally making it happen. The third win of his career couldn't have been bigger or more timely.
"This is huge," he remarked during a Victory Lane interview. "Honestly, if I had won a lot of races in my career but never won this one, I think I'd be pretty disappointed.
"For the Rahals, this track has been extremely special to us for so many years," he added. "Jim Trueman [Red Roof Inn founder and former owner of Mid-Ohio] was the guy who made this place and he also got my dad started in racing. I spent a lot of time here when I was a little kid, and it's all come full circle."
Though Bobby Rahal no longer calls races on the radio, he was on hand to share in the joy of his son's victory, as was Graham's mother, Debi Barry.
Bobby Rahal moved to Columbus in the early 1980s when he drove for Trueman's Truesports team in the CART Indy car series. Rahal took over that team and operated it out of the Truesports shop on the west side of Columbus until moving the operation to Brownsburg, Indiana, two years ago.
Graham Rahal's second win of the season, combined with championship leader Juan Pablo Montoya's 11th-place finish, puts the younger Rahal just nine points behind Montoya with two races remaining this year.
Scott Dixon, who lost the 5-second lead he built from pole position to an early yellow, recovered to finish fourth, and moved to within 34 points of Montoya.
Many Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing team members have strong roots in Columbus, including team manager Ricardo Nault.
"It's a very special race," Nault said. "It's a home race, he's got that Ohio State Buckeyes helmet ... those guys went through some adversity and we have too this year. Hopefully we can emulate their success. It's been a great year. Graham is driving the wheels off this Honda and the team is firing on all cylinders.
"We had to play some strategy to get this to work out, but we got lucky and it played out perfectly," Nault added. "It was Dixon's race to lose, and somehow we took it away from him."
A Lap 21 caution for debris is what ruined Dixon's race and what made Rahal's. Locked in the midfield after qualifying 13th, Rahal pitted early on Lap 13, and the subsequent caution a few laps later elevated him to second after other drivers stopped under yellow.
Montoya was the leader at that point, but the same misfortune that befell Dixon on the Lap 21 caution happened to Montoya on Lap 65. Rahal had just made his final stop, but Sage Karam's spin brought out the yellow that doomed Montoya to the midfield.
Dixon was crestfallen after finishing fourth, gaining 14 points on Montoya but losing ground to Rahal on the day.
"With the new aero kits, there's such a wake, and it's really tough to get close, especially in the key places that you need," Dixon said. "I thought we were in good position for the last restart, and not to moan, but Graham went in the middle of the corner and not even close to the restart zone. That's typical. Unfortunately, Race Control doesn't make any calls or do anything about it.
"But congratulations to Graham," he added. "Obviously they got the strategy right, and they're making the championship pretty tight right now."
Justin Wilson parlayed a similar strategy with perfectly timed pit stops into a second-place finish and a morale-building 1-2 for Honda. Wilson strongly challenged Rahal on the last restart but backed off to avoid a collision.
"I was pushing like hell to try and get Graham on that restart," Wilson commented. "I knew I couldn't lean on him or bang wheels with him -- he's a Honda driver gunning for the championship. That was in the back of my mind, but I wanted to push him as hard as I could and make him earn it.
"He did a fantastic job today."
Rahal pulled away over the final 10 laps to win by 3.405 seconds as the crowd lining the hills surrounding the Mid-Ohio course roared their approval.
"At the end I was able to absolutely gap anybody if I needed too, though I was nervous that Wilson was going to get me on that last restart," Rahal said.
As Dixon said, Rahal really is making the championship tight. Two bad races in a row for Montoya haven't helped the Colombian's cause, but he's still the championship leader headed to Pocono Raceway, where he is the defending champion.
Montoya remained upbeat despite finishing 11th on Sunday.
"From where we were on Friday to today was a huge difference," he stated. "We did everything we were supposed to do today and the race was playing out perfectly for us.
"Unfortunately we got a caution with about 25 laps to go that we didn't need. It worked out for some and didn't work out for others. We had a great car, and we still have the championship lead."