After retiring as a driver, Rahal held managerial positions with the Jaguar Formula 1 team and also was an interim president of the CART series.

Rahal began his career in SCCA feeder categories, eventually finishing second to Gilles Villeneuve in the 1977 Formula Atlantic championship.

During the next few seasons, he competed in various sports car events, including the 24 Hours of Le Mans and the IMSA GT Championship.

In 1982, Rahal entered the CART Indy car series with the Truesports team, winning two races and finishing second in the championship behind Rick Mears.

In 1986, Rahal dramatically passed Kevin Cogan on a restart with two laps to go to win the Indianapolis 500, only days before his team owner, Jim Trueman died of cancer.

In November 1984 he drove the 7-11 sponsored Wood Brothers #21 Ford (substituting for Buddy Baker) to a 40th-place finish in the Winston Western 500 at Riverside International Speedway, completing only 44 laps before breaking a rear end gear.

Except for a second-place finish at Toronto, he and teammate Mike Groff struggled to show the full potential of an engine that would soon dominate the series.

In 1995 at Long Beach Rahal became the 10th driver in Championship Car history (including AAA, USAC, and CART) to start 200 races in his career.

During this time, Rahal attempted to hire championship-winning aerodynamicist Adrian Newey, briefly believing that the deal had been completed, but was unsuccessful.

His business interests include Bobby Rahal Automotive Group, a network of car dealerships in western and central Pennsylvania selling Acura, BMW, Honda, Jaguar, Land Rover, Lexus, Mercedes-Benz, Toyota and Volvo.

In 2021, Rahal began to venture into race promoting with the help of former IndyCar and Indianapolis Motor Speedway owner Tony George.

[5] Rahal's first move in race promotion was to return the popular Iowa Speedway round to IndyCar after it had been left off of the 2021 calendar.