Rahal was in third place in the Honda Indy 200 at the time, but he cycled to the lead as others, including points leader Juan Pablo Montoya, had to wait to pit.
Rahal not only won that restart, he won the final one with Justin Wilson to score his second victory in the past four events. He also won the oval-track race at Auto Club Speedway on June 27 and gave Honda three wins in the past four races.
The excitement was capped by the fact Rahal considers this his home track. He was born and raised less than an hour south of here in the Columbus area. His father, three-time series champion Bobby Rahal, who won here in 1985 and ’86.
“You know, I’ve had a lot of confidence in my pit crew this year,” Rahal said. “They’ve done an excellent job. I had a lot of confidence in the fuel mileage of the Honda, which played a big role in this race, because we were able to pit so early, the windows were so big for us.
“This morning we ended up 11th in warmup, but I never even got a lap. I was on super-old tires. I wanted to go to new just to see how long it would take for them to come in running hard. But I knew the car was good this morning. So I kind of felt like a top three, top five was realistic. To win is a different thing. But, like I said, when it’s your day sometimes it’s your day. ”
With Montoya finishing 11th, Rahal climbed to within nine points of the lead with two races to go (Aug. 23 at Pocono Raceway, Aug. 30 at Sonoma Raceway). The Sonoma race will award double the usual number of points.
“Everyone on the Hawk Performance Chevy did an amazing job today,” Montoya said. “From where we were on Friday to today was a huge difference. 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. But we had a great car and we still have the points lead. Ready for Pocono where we won last year.”
Pole winner Scott Dixon, who not only won last year but also five of the past nine events at this track, got shuffled back in the pack on an early caution but fought back to finish fourth. He trails Montoya by 34 points.
Justin Wilson finished second with Simon Pagenaud third and Tony Kanaan fifth.