Rahal, Edmund - Auto Racing, 2007
Rahal was born in Savannah in 1925 and first took to sports car racing in 1952, when he drove his first amateur race at the local SAC Hunter Air Force Base. Rahal quickly moved up through the ranks and was soon courted by and signed with the Semi-Works Factory Racing Team established by the late Robert C. Roebling. Rahal is most noted for winning seven national sports car races at Daytona International Speedway. His D-type Jaguar amassed more wins that any other D-Jag in the United States. This record still stands today. In a race at Boca Raton, Florida, he finished third after pushing his Arnolt-Bristol (a 2,700-pound car) a mile to the finish line after it blew two piston rods. He won the sportsmanship award for that effort. NASA employed Rahal’s service at Daytona when he drove for the factory Cobra team by attaching monitors to his body in order to gather valuable stress information for its astronaut program. He also appeared on several Pennzoil ads.