Edmonton, Alberta, Canada – July 26, 2009

- McDonald’s driver Graham Rahal started fifth in the 95-lap Rexall Edmonton Indy on the 1.973-mile airport road course but took a conservative approach on the start rather than be hit on the opening lap for the second straight race this season and dropped to eighth but regained one spot a few turns later and finished seventh.  On the start, Mario Moraes, who hit him on Lap 1 of the Edmonton race last year pulled on the inside heading down the front straight into the first turn while Dario Franchitti and Paul Tracy took advantage of the situation and also pulled ahead of Rahal on the outside and dropped him momentarily to eighth place.  A few turns later Moraes and teammate Tracy made contact and Moraes retired from the event which moved Rahal into seventh.  He held his position through the stint and was able to stretch his fuel one-to-two laps longer than the majority of the field and pitted on Lap 34.  He returned to the track in seventh place and held his position until the next round of stops began and came in earlier than planned as he was being held up behind the lapped car of Hideki Mutoh so the team called him in on Lap 61.  He returned to the track in ninth place but regained seventh after the pit cycle was compete on Lap 69. A few laps later he closed on the slower lapped car of Wheldon, who was repeatedly shown the blue “move over” flag.  Once he was finally past him he caught up to the lapped car of Alex Tagliani.  Both of these backmarkers enabled eighth place Justin Wilson to close his deficit to Rahal from 18 seconds to three but Rahal was able to maintain seventh by the time the only full course caution of the day came out for Tomas Scheckter with two laps to go.  Pole sitter Will Power won the event while Helio Castroneves and Scott Dixon finished second and third respectively.  He maintained his 10th place rank in the standings with a total of 235 points, 50 behind fifth place Danica Patrick.  Following are Rahal’s post race comments: