by CHRIS ESTRADA, Special to FOXSports.com

Updated: April 9, 2008, 6:05 PM EST 5 comments

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Both sides made many blunders during the 13-year split. But now, the unified series has at least an opportunity to overcome them and put American open-wheel racing on the radar for every day sports fans.

Of course, that road would be smoother if the series' American drivers start winning on a regular basis. For that reason, Graham Rahal's stunning victory last weekend in St. Petersburg, Fla., has jackpot written all over it.

Rahal is from the U.S., he carries a legendary name in the sport, and at 19 years old, he's young. He also drives for the powerful Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing team that's competing in its first IndyCar Series season after four straight years of championships with Formula One's Sebastien Bourdais in Champ Car. Once the N/H/L team gets up to snuff on high-speed ovals, the potential could be huge for Graham to become a breakout star.

After his win, Rahal was modest in his post-race comments, but even he knew that with the recent unification, his win had the ability to make waves beyond the IndyCar world.

"I think it's important for it to (be unified) because I think we've struggled,' he said. ‘We all know we've struggled along as two series for so long now that finally we have one series and we really have something that has a lot of potential. I think for the fans here and especially the American fans, I think it's great to have an American driver do well. Certainly, there's more of them here in the one series than we've had in the past."

The one that chased him to the checkered flag, runner-up Helio Castroneves, also knew the possible implications.

"This is great for motor racing," the two-time Indianapolis 500 winner said. "It's great that this name ended up winning because it just shows that open-wheel racing is getting stronger again, it's getting better again, and it's going to be huge in the future."

The IRL's marketing and promotions department should have been going to work as soon as Rahal's No. 06 wheeled into Victory Lane on Sunday.

Castroneves and Danica Patrick have become mainstream figures, and with a proper push, there can be a third IndyCar driver in that group as well. What's more, Rahal won in his first-ever IndyCar start. Patrick's a solid driver, but that doesn't erase the fact that she hasn't won a race since her IRL debut in 2005, a span of 49 races and counting.

One of the IRL's major blemishes on its record during the split was its inability to market its drivers to the American public. Granted, whatever attempts they made came as NASCAR was exploding into the mainstream. But at that time, the IRL had several American stars that they could have done more for, such as Scott Sharp, Buddy Lazier and their biggest red-white-and-blue hero, Sam Hornish Jr.

But despite routing Lazier — an Indy 500 winner — for the 2001 championship and taking down Castroneves and the mighty Team Penske in 2002, Hornish never truly got the boost needed to make him a mainstream star. Most of the attention was lavished on Fisher, and it reached a fever pitch when she became the first woman in North American racing history to win a pole position at Kentucky Speedway in 2002. It was a great accomplishment, but considering that Hornish was locked in a points battle, he struggled to get even crumbs of attention as "Fisher-mania" ensued.

When Fisher left the IRL to try her hand in different forms of racing — a decision she eventually re-considered — it looked like Hornish would get some long-overdue attention as a member of Team Penske, the team he had aspired to drive for during his childhood. But in 2005, along came Patrick. With her fourth-place run at that year's Indianapolis 500, "Danica-mania" truly began and the IRL didn't just forget about Hornish again — this time, it forgot about everyone else.

Hornish finally let loose about his lack of promotion, along with other grievances, to the The Indianapolis Star in August, 2007. By then, Hornish had decided to run select NASCAR Sprint Cup races during the Chase for the Championship at the end of the season.

Of course, we all know how that story ended as Hornish now drives for Roger Penske's stock car operation.

No doubt that NASCAR knows Hornish's potential to be famous, and no doubt that they are taking note of Graham Rahal. Who wants to bet that the stock car juggernaut will take a shot at luring him over sometime in the near future?

Logic denotes that Rahal would only be lured away by aspirations of driving in Formula One. But we also thought Dario Franchitti was going to do the sensible thing and go sports car racing after his open-wheel career. That belief turned into a nightmare for the IRL as Franchitti, their reigning Indianapolis 500 and series champion, is now struggling to succeed for Chip Ganassi's stock car operation.

Marco Andretti also fits the mold of "young American star" and thus, the situation also applies to him. Yes, the 21-year-old's gotten some pop from the league, but has it really been enough to make him distinguishable outside the confines of his No. 26 Dallara? The Andretti name still has quite an aura, but even big names need marketing muscle behind them. And if he can't get mainstream cred, then he's fair game for NASCAR, too.

This is where the IRL has to toughen up. They have to show the drivers that they can get them noticed by people not involved with the sport. So far in their 13-year existence, they haven't done very well outside of Danica and Helio, but with the unification, they have the chance to build a solid series that holds enough promise to keep their homegrown stars as well as their talented international corps.

In order for IndyCar to become big again, it has to show that they have learned their lesson after the departure of Hornish and use all the resources it has to pump Rahal, Andretti and Patrick, as well as the other Americans on their full-time roster: A.J. Foyt IV, Ed Carpenter, Buddy Rice and Ryan Hunter-Reay.

They all have the ability to hold up their end of the deal on the track. If the IRL wants to have a prosperous post-unification future, they sure better hold up theirs.

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