Indianapolis ? The billboard across the street from the speedway looks like a greeting for a long-lost friend: “Look who’s back in town.”

Then you see the photo of team owner Bobby Rahal and driver Jimmy Vasser.

Car owner bobby Rahal watches practice at Indianapolis Motor Speedway this week. Rahal, the 1986 Indianapolis 500 champion and a one-time fixture at the race, is back for the first time as an owner and for the first time since the IRL-CART split in 1996.

To Rahal, the 1986 Indianapolis 500 champion, there could be no simpler message: If it’s May, he belongs at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

“It was disappointing not to be here,” Rahal said after arriving at the track this week. “We had some races in May, so it wasn’t like we were sitting around doing nothing. Certainly, though, I think we should have been here.”

Rahal insists he always believed that, even when his CART team left Indianapolis after the Indy Racing League formed in 1996.

Rahal was one of Tony George’s most vehement critics after George’s decision to split open-wheel racing into two circuits, CART and the IRL.

He said at the time that the IRL was more interested in “going its own way” and that the track’s tradition “had gone away” because of the split.

That started a feud with IRL team owner A.J. Foyt, who questioned the decision of CART owners to stay away from Indianapolis.

“They’re forgetting where they came from and what made their name,” Foyt said then.

Time is healing the wounds.

Rahal is the most recent addition to a growing list of CART teams that have returned to Indianapolis.

Chip Ganassi broke the ice in 2000 when he won the race with Juan Pablo Montoya. Last year Team Green and Roger Penske returned, with Penske driver Helio Castroneves winning. This year, seven CART drivers will try to make the May 26 race.

And after a six-year absence, Rahal has gotten enough money from his primary sponsor, Miller beer, to put his first car as a full-time owner on the Indianapolis track.

“There’s an excitement, a certain challenge about” being back, Rahal said. “It’s certainly changed around here from the last time I drove here.”

His final race here came in 1995 and his third-place finish was the last in a string of successes. He had seven top 10 finishes in 13 Indy starts, including the ’86 victory, a runner-up finish in 1990 and another third-place finish in 1994.

As much as Rahal enjoys being back, though, he remains adamant the split was unnecessary and the addition of two other races the Brickyard 400 and the U.S. Grand Prix have tarnished the Indianapolis 500.

“I’m a purist, a romantic,” Rahal said. “I felt the split was bad and I thought it was wrong to bring a stock car race to the track.

“I’m always galled when I hear everyone in NASCAR say it’s America’s race. If anything is America’s race, it’s the Indy 500.”

Despite the complaints, his passion for the sport and the race have not faded.

“He does talk about Indianapolis a lot,” Vasser said. “He regards Indianapolis as one of his crowning achievements.”

While his return to the track has been embraced by some fans, Rahal does not expect to receive everyone’s blessings.

He’s been around long enough to know better.

“I’m sure there will be people who will be asking me about my mother,” Rahal said with a laugh.

Rahal does not apologize for his opinions.

But he is happy to be back, competing on the track that turned him into a racing celebrity and got his photo on a billboard.

“It pained me greatly to watch this race on television, from afar,” he said. “It was certainly not something I asked for. I’m glad to be back at the track, but you still have to ask yourself what was accomplished over the last six years?”