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Title: “Bobby Rahal: The Graceful Champion”

Author: Gordon Kirby

Publisher: David Bull Publishing ($34.95)

Bobby Rahal never was a prototype race car driver. It often was said that he didn’t have the look of a driver, although no one explained precisely what that should be. Maybe more like A. J. Foyt, Parnelli Jones or Steve Kinser, blocks of granite.

Rahal certainly didn’t fit that picture. With his steel-rimmed glasses, receding hair line and college degree, Rahal seemed more professorial, more cerebral, than racy.

Gordon Kirby, one of the country’s finest racing journalists, has captured the flavor of the unusual driver from Ohio as Rahal progressed from a struggling competitor to an Indianapolis 500 winner, a champion owner-driver and now a retired and respected owner of his own CART champ car team.

Fascinating are vignettes of alliances formed that led to successes, and just as interesting the ones that failed. Kirby tells both sides, warts and all.

There are poignant moments, such as Rahal’s winning the Indy 500 only 10 days before Jim Trueman, his car owner and early benefactor, died of cancer; and secretive moments, such as when Rahal was involved in planning a Ferrari invasion of Indy that never came about.

For those of us who remember and regret the closing of Riverside International Raceway, one of the world’s great road courses, the inside covers, front and back, make the book a treasure. Pictured is a field of winged cars moving through the esses as course workers give the thumbs-up sign to the drivers.

In the same way, “Bobby Rahal: The Graceful Champion,” deserves a thumbs up.