The name has changed, but the challenge remains the same

CLEVELAND (AP) -- It's been 25 years since Bobby Rahal took the checkered flag at the first Grand Prix of Cleveland.
The event has undergone name changes, been shortened in distance and laps -- they even raced at night a few years back. But the one constant has been open-wheel drivers zipping around the runways and taxiways of Burke Lakefront Airport, the longest-running temporary course on the Champ Car circuit.
The race is also one of the circuit's most challenging, with a first turn that's shortened many drivers' afternoons.
"You need to be lucky here for sure," said Sebastien Bourdais, a two-time winner in Cleveland.
Rahal was a rookie in the Championship Auto Racing Teams series in 1982 when he won his first race in what was then the Cleveland 500.
"I could have run for mayor the next day and won," Rahal, a native of suburban Medina, recalled Thursday.
When Rahal won it was a 310-mile, 125-lap race, a marathon compared with the 191.646-mile, 91-lap course introduced last year.
Rahal recalls the infamous Turn 1 wasn't as risky back then. A long straightway now leads to the wide hairpin where at least one car has been knocked out of the race in five of the past six years.
"It probably wasn't as treacherous as this one," Rahal said. "Now, it looks like one of those old Oklahoma land rush films -- they're a mile across as they go down into Turn 1."
High hopes
Rahal is in town to celebrate the race's 25th anniversary and watch his 17-year-old son, Graham, drive in a doubleheader of Atlantic series races Saturday and Sunday. Graham Rahal became the youngest to win an Atlantic series event this year in Monterey, Mexico.
"Naturally, we hope to repeat on the 25th anniversary of my win," Rahal said.
Graham Rahal, of New Albany, Ohio, considers the Grand Prix of Cleveland his home race. While he wasn't alive for his dad's win in '82, he has at least one distinct memory of the old man's racing days in Cleveland.
"I remember his race ending in Turn 1 once," he said with a chuckle, recalling the 1993 race. "That's probably the most vivid race in my memory."
Paul Tracy won that year and this weekend will look to repeat last year's performance, in which he started on the pole and got his 30th career victory on the bumpy 2.106-mile course overlooking Lake Erie.
Tracy likes that the track has gone largely unchanged since he won it the first time.
"It's always been a track that I've gone well at," he said. "It's still the same. That's what's kind of cool about it. It's kind of got it's own uniqueness."
Tracy finished 3.113 seconds ahead of A.J. Allmendinger last year. The two became teammates last week after Allmendinger, the 2004 rookie of the year, was fired by the RuSport team and was hired by Forsythe Championship Racing.
Settling down
Allmendinger, who got engaged shortly after he was fired, topped off the week by winning his first race Sunday at Portland, Ore. He's finally settled down from the whirlwind week.
"I'm ready to focus, but now it's more pressure because we went out there and showed the world we can do it," Allmendinger said. "You really don't want to have a victory then a letdown this weekend."
Allmendinger, who was immobilized and carried from the track on a stretcher after a wreck in qualifying last year, likes the Cleveland track because it's wide open, allowing for a lot of passing.
"We're all stupid race car drivers. We get the green and it's six wide and we think, 'Oh, we can go from 10th to the lead in Turn 1,' " he said. "It usually causes a mess."
Bourdais, who finished third in Portland after opening the season with four straight wins, likes to take a conservative approach in Turn 1. He avoided near disaster there two years ago and won in Cleveland for the second straight year.
"We've had great success here but every year you come back it's different," Bourdais said. "You never know what to expect."
The defending two-time series champion has been dominant, winning 20 times in 49 starts. He's looking to join Danny Sullivan and Emerson Fittipaldi as the only three-time winners of the Cleveland race.
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