INDIANAPOLIS — Bobby Rahal’s lower chin still quivers just like it did May 31, 1986, after winning the Indianapolis 500 in record speed, when reporters asked him about his dying owner, Jim Trueman, who had cheered Rahal on from the pits, a skeleton of the man he once had been.
Trueman was 51, and he was battling terminal colon cancer. His frail appearance was shocking to viewers watching the first live, televised broadcast of the legendary race on ABC.
As Rahal tried not to cry talking about his mentor, he simply said: “I’m almost in tears. This one is for Jim Trueman. If there’s one thing I can give Jim Trueman, it’s this.”
As Rahal went on to explain his victory, how “if it hadn’t been for that yellow, I would have been struggling,” he turned his head and saw Trueman coming toward him.
“And here he is. Here’s the moment everyone’s been waiting for,” the ABC reporter said as Rahal and Trueman embraced.
“Couldn’t of been better,” an emotional Trueman said to Rahal, who told his owner, “This is yours.”
As the cameras cut away from victory circle, an announcer said in a somber voice: “Very great possibility exists that Jim Trueman won’t be here next year. It’s great to see him standing there.”
Rahal is 73 now — 22 years older than Trueman was when he died 11 days after watching Rahal make his racing dream come true. Rahal can still remember all of that race four decades ago.
And, when he talks about what it meant to win the 1986 Indy 500 for Trueman, Rahal’s chin quivers just like it did 40 years ago.
Rahal was 33 then, 18 years younger than Trueman. The two had an incredible bond they’d formed over a 13-year partnership that began with Trueman as a mentor to his protege Rahal. As time passed, their bond turned into a deep friendship, too.
Trueman and Rahal met in 1973 when Rahal was 20, pursuing a degree in history at Denison University near Columbus, Ohio. Trueman, who was from Hamlin, Ohio, was just starting his Red Roof Inn chain, which quickly became the largest privately owned and operated motel chain in the nation.
Both men were competing in Sports Car Club of America events on the weekends. Rahal was a rookie. Trueman was a star, 125 victories, including two club championships.
Late in the 1974 season, when Rahal was desperate to come up with $500 for a race in New York, Trueman was there with the money without hesitation. Rahal never forgot that.
Trueman saw something special in this young driver and was a sponsor of Rahal’s from the beginning. When Trueman decided to start an IndyCar team in 1981, he wanted Rahal, who had been approached by some of the most prestigious teams on the CART circuit, including Pat Patrick.
“And (Trueman) said to me, ‘If you’re smart, you’ll say yes to everything I say,'” Rahal says, laughing. “And, I knew him well enough to say ‘yes’ to whatever he said, because he’d shown himself to be an honorable person, a humble person.”
Rahal shunned those other flashy, big name teams and retained his allegiance to his mentor. In the fall of 1981, Trueman’s racing team, Truesports, was born. Rahal’s entry into IndyCar in 1982 coincided with Truesports’ first year in the circuit.
By the time the 1986 Indy 500 came around, Rahal had already won eight IndyCar races. He quickly made sure Trueman wouldn’t regret taking a chance on him.
“So, in a very short period of time, the organization was already competing successfully against people like Roger Penske and Pat Patrick and Jim Hall, the big guys in IndyCar racing at the time,” Rahal says.
But the 1986 Indy 500 was going to be different for the Truesports team than any of those other races had been. Trueman was two years into a battle with colon cancer, an aggressive form of the disease. For Rahal, it was devastating to see his “godfather in the sport” suffering.
“Despite radical protocols and what-have-you to try to cure that, by the time we went to Indy in 1986, the handwriting was very much on the wall that he was not going to be with us much longer,” Rahal says.
“This 500 was going to be probably his last, and if there was any way we could win that race for him, it would be a realization of a dream for him. I mean, a realization for all of us, as well. But more importantly, a realization of a dream for him.”
Rain pours down, 6-day race delay, emotions high
If Hollywood had written a script like this, nobody would believe it, Rahal says. “They’d say, ‘Oh, that doesn’t happen. That’s not real life.’ Well, it did (happen) in this case.”
Everything about the 1986 Indy 500 has the makings of a movie and, this month, a new Fox Sports documentary premiered featuring the race, “Bobby Rahal: True American Racer.”
As the crowds descended on Indianapolis Motor Speedway in 1986, the clock was ticking to make Trueman’s dying wish of an Indy 500 victory come true. His life expectancy was being measured not in years, months, nor weeks, but in days.
“There was some question whether he would even survive to see the race,” Rahal says. “And so we carried that. It was kind of a bittersweet month. Then it comes to race day. It rains, and then it got rained out, and then it got rained out the next day, and then it got rained out the day after that.”
There was a cloud over IMS, a gloom that fit the mood in the Truesports camp.
“I’d been sitting in this kind of pressure cooker environment for three days waiting to get the word, ‘OK, we’re going to go racing now,'” Rahal says. “And every time you get to that point, actually there were several times when we were all in the pit lane thinking, ‘This is it. It was going to get going.’ Then it would start to rain again.”
And, always, weighing on Rahal’s heart and mind, every time rain delayed the race, was Trueman.
“We had a clear understanding that our leader, the guy who brought us all together, was not going to be … not going to be around much longer,” Rahal says.
With the race being broadcast live on television for the first time and, with an army of yellow shirt volunteers at IMS who couldn’t miss another day of their “real jobs,” it was decided the 1986 Indy 500 would be run the next weekend, Saturday, May 31 — six days late.
Rahal was OK with that. He needed to get away from IMS, refresh his mind and prepare to win this race for Trueman. He went home to Columbus, Ohio, and returned to Indy a few days later with a laser focus.
The weather was perfect on that race day 40 years ago; 73 degrees, blue skies and sunny. Rahal had qualified fourth and started inside the second row.
Before the green flag was waved, as Rahal sat in his car, he told Trueman, “this one’s for you,” and the two shook hands.
As Rahal took off on his 500-mile, speed-induced journey, Trueman was with him in so many ways. “He was in very poor, poor shape,” Rahal says. “He was not good.”
Rahal knew exactly what he had to do.
‘Very rarely do you have the chance to achieve a dream for someone else’
Rahal won the 1986 Indy 500 in record speed, making history as the first driver to finish the race in less than three hours, which also meant setting a record for the fastest average speed, just less than 171 miles per hour.
Trueman sat in the pits cheering Rahal on, and he erupted as Rahal crossed the finish line first. “I really think he willed himself to … to stay there, to stay alive long enough,” Rahal says.
The victory was magical and somber at the same time.
“For us and the team, it was difficult to celebrate too much, frankly,” Rahal says. “Very rarely do you have the chance to achieve a dream for someone else. And for Jim, that was a real dream of his, and he did it.”
With Rahal.
Looking back on that race, winning the 1986 Indy 500, “literally, it changes your life professionally and personally,” Rahal says. “And you don’t quite realize that until you actually do it, but it has that kind of an impact on your life.”
Even 40 years later, having won three IndyCar championships, 24 other IndyCar races and as a successful owner with Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing, winning two Indy 500s, in 2004 and 2020, Rahal is never introduced as anything other than the 1986 Indy 500 champion.
“And that just shows you the value and the importance that this race has,” he says. “So, for me, it’s obviously the highlight of my career. There were other races that maybe were more difficult to win, championships that were more difficult to win, but they’re not Indianapolis.
“Indianapolis is in just a different league than everything else.”
And Rahal’s Indy 500 win had an impact that went far beyond racing, far beyond speed. It was a race to beat the clock that was ticking on life, on the things that really mattered. A race to give Trueman his dying wish.
As Rahal and Trueman stood together after that Indy 500 victory, a mutual IndyCar friend walked up to congratulate them. And he said something Rahal will never forget.
“The 32 of us didn’t realize that we didn’t stand a chance today,” he told them. “The good Lord was going to make sure that Rahal won that race for Jim Trueman.”
Rahal’s owner died 11 days later, and his obituary read: “James R. Trueman, the owner of the car that Bobby Rahal drove to victory last month in the Indianapolis 500 and president of the Red Roof Inns motel chain, died Wednesday of cancer at his home. He was 51 years old.”
Trueman would be 91 today, 18 years older than his protege Rahal.
And still, 40 years later, Rahal is carrying on Trueman’s dream at the track, never forgetting the man who started it all for him.
Follow IndyStar sports reporter Dana Benbow on X: @DanaBenbow. Reach her via email: dbenbow@indystar.com.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Bobby Rahal remembers bittersweet 1986 Indy 500 win as Jim Trueman was dying
