Jim Trueman began racing sports cars in 1962. In the 1970s he met Bobby Rahal and the two entered the Can-Am series together. After several seasons they began targeting CART and the Indianapolis 500. In 1981 Trueman sponsored the car of owner-driver Vern Schuppan at the Indianapolis 500 through his Red Roof Inn motel business; the car finished third.
The Truesports CART team was formally founded in 1982 with Rahal as driver. Rahal won his first race midway through the season at Cleveland, followed by another win at Michigan, a second-place finish in the season standings, and the CART Rookie of the Year award. In 1983 and 1984 the team added three more race wins and placed seventh at the 1984 Indianapolis 500.
In 1985 Truesports secured Budweiser sponsorship. Rahal qualified on the front row at Indianapolis but mechanical problems ended their race early. Later in the season he won three races across a five-race stretch and finished third in the championship. Concurrent with the primary CART effort, Truesports raced in IMSA on several occasions in the mid-1980s. In 1982 Trueman and Rahal finished second at the 12 Hours of Sebring, and the pair also raced in the 1982 24 Hours of Le Mans with Garretson Developments. Rahal had previously won the 1981 24 Hours of Daytona with Garretson Developments.
The 1986 season brought the team's defining achievement: victory at the 1986 Indianapolis 500. Eleven days after the win, team owner Trueman died following a two-year battle with cancer. The team dedicated its efforts to his memory; Rahal went on to win six races and the 1986 CART championship.
For 1987, Steve Horne and other members of the Trueman family assumed day-to-day operations. Truesports switched from March to the Lola chassis while retaining the Cosworth DFX engine. Several leading CART teams — Penske, Patrick, and Newman/Haas — had moved to the more powerful Chevrolet-Ilmor, yet Truesports continued to compete. Rahal qualified second at Indianapolis but retired with an ignition problem. He won three races and clinched his second consecutive CART title. Also in 1987, Truesports won the ARS Championship with driver Didier Theys; ARS was the precursor to the modern Indy Lights series.
For 1988, Truesports switched to the Judd engine, known to be underpowered but reliable and fuel-efficient in 500-mile races. Rahal finished fourth at Indianapolis, second at the Michigan 500, and won the Pocono 500 — the team's only win that season. At year's end Rahal chose to leave.
In 1989, the team signed rookie Scott Pruett, who earned co-Rookie of the Year honours at Indianapolis and one second-place finish at Detroit. Pruett had an advantage at Detroit having previously won the SCCA Trans-Am Motor City 100 on the same street circuit (a former Formula One venue) in 1987.
In March 1990 Pruett was seriously injured in a preseason testing crash at West Palm Beach, Florida. Raul Boesel drove as replacement for the entire season; his best finish was sixth place. Pruett spent all of 1990 in physical rehabilitation.
In 1985 Trueman and Rahal travelled to Italy to meet with Ferrari and made a demonstration run with a March 85C-Cosworth. Ferrari subsequently built its own Indy car chassis, the Ferrari 637, and Truesports appeared poised to run it — but the partnership never materialised, described in retrospect as a bargaining tool by the Ferrari Formula One team.
From 1990 Truesports began an in-house chassis programme. The Truesports All-American chassis was designed to debut in the 1991 CART season. Unlike the Penske and Galmer in-house chassis assembled in England, the Truesports chassis was constructed entirely in the United States at the team's Hilliard shops. The design used a rolling-road wind tunnel at the Aeronautical and Astronautical Research Laboratory at Ohio State University. Don Halliday led the primary design work.
The team drove year-old Lola cars through the entire 1990 season to save costs. When Pruett returned in 1991 he drove the Truesports 91C-Judd to a respectable first season. For 1992 the chassis was developed further with the dominant Chevy Indy A engine, but Pruett did not win a race. Mid-season, facing escalating costs, the team announced it would abandon the chassis project; Horne resigned in June. Longtime sponsor Budweiser announced it was leaving Truesports for King Racing ahead of the 1993 season.
The association with Ferrari and the subsequent collapse of the chassis and engine programme had lasting consequences. Although Rahal was defending champion in both the Indy 500 and CART, the team lacked the preferred Ilmor Chevy Indy V-8 for 1987 and 1988 — a key reason Rahal ultimately departed. Rahal's Pocono win in 1988 proved to be the team's final race victory.
Following a slumping 1992 season, Truesports reorganised. The team's physical assets, headquarters, and chassis programme were first leased and then absorbed into Rahal-Hogan Racing, co-owned by former Truesports driver Bobby Rahal. The remainder of the Trueman family businesses operated separately.
In 1993 Rahal-Hogan Racing attempted to continue the Truesports chassis under the name R/H chassis, scoring a second-place finish at Long Beach. The programme was short-lived: the chassis proved uncompetitive on superspeedways and the team suffered a critical blow when Rahal failed to qualify at Indianapolis. The team switched to the conventional Lola shortly after; driver Mike Groff attempted to salvage the season while the chassis project was permanently abandoned by year's end.
Bobby Rahal (1982–1988)
Scott Pruett (1989, 1991–1992)
Raul Boesel (1990)
Geoff Brabham (1991)
Didier Theys
Colin Trueman
Jim Trueman purchased Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course in 1981; it remained owned by the Trueman family. Associated businesses included The Mid-Ohio School (a driving and riding school), Truesports Choice (a high-performance automobile parts company), Truepower (engine development), and Trueperformance (a collision repair facility).
This article is based solely on the supplied corpus. No external sources were consulted; claims that could not be substantiated against the corpus were omitted under the drop-the-claim rule.
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