IndyCar team owners Michael Lanigan (left) and Bobby Rahal (right).
Michael Lanigan returned to the IndyCar paddock Sunday at The Thermal Club after surviving a major health scare five weeks ago that left him with a broken neck.
Lanigan is one of the three owners of Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing along with 1986 Indianapolis 500 winner and three-time CART Champion Bobby Rahal and television icon David Letterman.
The 74-year-old Lanigan continues to wear a neck brace to stabilize his fractured neck and explained what happened while sitting on a golf cart a few hours before The Thermal Club IndyCar Grand Prix on March 23.
Five weeks ago, Lanigan couldn’t sleep and got up at 3 a.m. to make some coffee. According to Lanigan, he walked down the stairs when his heart stopped. Lanigan fell, fracturing his neck and sustained a gash on his head. Somehow, the impact helped to restart his heart and the industrialist from the South Suburbs of Chicago was transported to the hospital.
Lanigan explained that doctors installed a pacemaker that triggers his heart whenever it stops. It is something he will likely have to utilize from now on.
Lanigan has been involved in IndyCar racing for decades after he started Mi-Jack, a heavy construction company, in 1973. In 1989, Lanigan returned to the family headquarters in south suburban Chicago in 1989 to take over the business, to become the company’s president.
Mi-Jack produces rubber-tire gantry cranes.
In 1992, began sponsoring cars in CART and the Indianapolis 500. In 1993, Lanigan co-founded Walter Payton Power Equipment, a crane and heavy equipment distributor. He currently leads the Lanco Group, a conglomerate involved in cranes, industrial equipment, entertainment, motorsport interests, and a joint venture that operates the Panama Canal Railway.
Lanigan was co-executor of Walter Payton’s estate along with Matt Suhey after the Pro Football Hall of Fame running back of the Chicago Bears passed away from a rare liver disease in 1995.
Lanigan became a racing team owner in 2001 when he was a partner with driver Eric Bachelart at Conquest Racing. That team competed in the IndyCar Series in 2001 and 2002, and in the Champ Car World Series from 2003 to 2006.
After the 2007 season, he sold his interest in Conquest and joined Newman/Haas Racing, which was renamed Newman/Haas/Lanigan Racing. The team transitioned to the IndyCar Series following the unification of Champ Car and IndyCar in 2008. Lanigan became close friends with one of the team’s owners, actor Paul Newman, and was among the last to see him before he passed away son September 26, 2008.
In 2007, Lanigan also held partial ownership of Carl A. Haas Motorsports in NASCAR.
Lanigan left Newman/Haas in 2010 and, in December of that year, joined Rahal Letterman Racing, which was subsequently renamed Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing. The team competes in both IndyCar and the WeatherTech SportsCar Championship.
Lanigan was one of the winning team owners of the 104th Indianapolis on August 23, 2020, when Takuma Sato was the winning driver in the only Indy 500 held outside of the month of May. That was because of the COVID pandemic that forced Indianapolis Motor Speedway officials from allowing spectators at the race.
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