BRYAN Herta had a very special surprise birthday gift this week – the Team Rahal Reynard/Ford-Cosworth that he used to score his first CART race win at Laguna Seca 25 years ago in 1998.
As the below video from The RACER Channel and Vintage Motorsport by Marshall Pruett shows, Herta thought he was going to his workshop to do an interview with the long-time journalist and ex-race mechanic.
However, it was all a ruse, as he was instead presented with the Shell-liveried Reynard 98i – chassis 005 – by son Colton, who tracked it down and bought it for his father.
The car was driven by Herta in the 1998 CART Series – then known as the FedEx Championship Series – and swapped between being his primary and spare chassis for that season.
He used it to dominate the Laguna Seca race in mid-September 1998, taking pole position and leading 81 of the 83 laps.
According to our Indy Sleuth chassis records, in addition to taking it to victory at Laguna Seca that year he also used this chassis to finish on the podium at Portland after starting from pole position.
These chassis records, noting the race histories of CART and Champ Car-era Indy-style racing cars, were acquired by V8 Sleuth in 2021 from their creator, long-time commentator and journalist Jeremy Shaw.
The car has its original Ford-Cosworth V8 turbocharged engine, the very same one – as confirmed by the team, now known as Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing – that it used to take victory at Laguna Seca in ’98.
Herta famously was passed on the inside of the Corkscrew at the same circuit two years earlier in 1996 and denied his first CART win when Alex Zanardi launched a wild move on the last lap.
Herta, who turned 53 on Tuesday this week, went on to win again at Laguna Seca for Team Rahal in 1999.
His son Colton, who drives for Andretti Autosport, will start 21st in this weekend’s Indianapolis 500.
WATCH THE 1998 LAGUNA SECA RACE HERE:
