Rahn Tobler
Rahn Tobler grew up not far from Lions Drag Strip and was a fan there but after moving to Texas when he was 15, he became involved in it. His first real exposure came during his daily trip from home to his job in a grocery store. A pair of racers, Steve Stephens and Dick Venables Sr., had a Top Fuel Dragster they worked on in the evenings and often left the door to their shop open and Rahn would stop and admire the car. After about a month they invited him to come in and shortly after that invited him to go to the races with them. The race was the 1971 NHRA World Finals in Amarillo, TX and it was Rahn’s first opportunity to actually work on a race car. The pair also ran a AA/F Funny Car and Rahn worked as a crew member on both cars from 1972 through 1975.
In 1975, Rahn got his AA/F Dragster license in the Stephens and Venables AA/F Dragster with the intention of competing as a driver but signed on as a full-time crew member with Marvin Graham for the 1976 season. At the end of the 1976 season, Rahn left Graham’s team and took the Stephens and Venables dragster to Florida for a three race program. While in Florida, Connie Kalitta approached him to become a crew member on Shirley Muldowney’s car which Rahn accepted. In 1977, with Connie as the crew chief and Rahn a full-time crew member, Shirley won the NHRA World Championship.
Connie and Shirley parted ways in early 1978 and Shirley offered Rahn the crew chief job which he took. 1978 and 1979 were learning years for Rahn as a crew chief but the team turned things around in 1980 and won four NHRA national races and Shirley’s second NHRA World Championship.
In 1981, the team began competing in non NHRA sanctioned races and in 1981 won the AHRA World Championship. The team followed its successful 1981 in 1982 by winning four NHRA National Races and in 1982 won its third NHRA World Championship title. During the following seven years, the team expanded its racing events to include NHRA, AHRA and IHRA events.
With no major sponsorship signed on, from 1990 through 2003, Shirley and Rahn raced strictly as a business venture, competing mainly in match races. However, they did win three additional IHRA National Races during that time. With Shirley’s retirement, Rahn took over as Crew Chief of Doug Kalitta’s AA/F Dragster and in the following three years they won fourteen NHRA National Races,
Rahn switched from dragsters to AA/Funny Cars in 2007 as Cruz Pedregons Crew Chief and in 2008 the team ended the season with three NHRA National Event wins and the NHRA Funny Car World Championship.
During the following fifteen years, Rahn worked as Crew Chief on Don Schumacher’s Jack Beckman driven Funny Car, Ron Capps Funny Car and John Force’s Austin Prock Top Fuel Car. Rahn’s record as Crew Chief is three NHRA AA/F Dragster Championships, one AHRA AA/F Dragster Championship, two NHRA AA/F Funny Car Championships, thirty-two NHRA Fuel Dragster National Events, forty NHRA Fuel Funny Car National Events, eight AHRA Fuel Dragster National Events and three IHRA Fuel Dragster National Events.
Rahn Tobler has not retired, in 2023 he took on the role of Consultant for two part time teams, TJ Rizzo’s Top Fuel team and Jason Rupert’s Funny Car team.
