Road and Track, October 1st, 2006
Roger Penske's two passoins are racing and business. He has integrated them masterfully for 40 years, and has been incredibly successful at both. Penske retired from an outstanding career as a driver in 1964 to become owner of a Chevrolet dealership in Philadelphia. Today, the privately held Penske Corp. is an empire with 34,000 employees and revenues in the billions. Penske began his race team in 1966. In the early years, with driver Mark Donohue, he won championships in the United States Road Racing Championship, Trans-Am, Can-Am and, in 1972, the Indianapolis 500. Penske won his record 14th Indy 500 with Sam Hornish Jr. in May. Penske also has teams in NASCAR’s Nextel Cup and Busch series, and in the American Le Mans series. All have won races this year. A dynamic leader, the 69-year-old Penske shows no signs of slowing down. In this interview, he discusses a wide range of topics from his early career to now.
Road & Track: What inspired you way back when to become a race car driver?
I guess it goes back to 1951 when my father took me to Indianapolis. As a young boy, I went to the race every year with my dad. I was always interested in cars. When I was 15 years old, I went to work for a car dealership in Cleveland and started working on cars and bought my first car and ran some hillclimbs. I got my racing license at Marlboro, Maryland, with the SCCA back in the late ’50s. And that started my career. I knew Bob Holbert, who was a Porsche dealer in Warrington (Pennsylvania) and ended up buying his Porsche Spyder, which was the first real race car I had. My first car that I raced, though, was a Corvette, a ’57, a fuel-injection competition Corvette.
R&T: And that led you up the ladder? You were Driver of the Year in 1962, weren’t you?
Yes. I guess I was like everybody else in those days. You never were satisfied until you got a faster car. I drove Porsches, I had a Birdcage Maserati and in the final years, I drove for Jim Hall in the Chaparrals. I won races at Riverside and Laguna Seca and then the Bahama Speed Weeks, which really was the last race in ’64. At that point, I was going to become a Chevrolet dealer. I couldn’t get the franchise or borrow the money to be a dealer if I was going to be a race driver.
R&T: You were already working at a dealership?
I was working as general manager of a Chevrolet dealership in West Philadelphia. In fact, it’s ironic, when they talk about [car owner] Al Dean and Mario Andretti, I was offered the chance to go to Indy to get my rookie test in the same car as Mario, and I couldn’t do it because I had a job. And Mario, obviously, went on to be one of the greatest drivers ever.
R&T: What motivated you to start the race team?
I was way off the map there for a while because I had the dealership and didn’t have the time to be involved in racing, but a gentleman by the name of Elmer Bradley, who was executive vice president of the Sun Oil Company, came to our dealership in Philadelphia and bought a Corvette. I said to him, “Maybe we should get Sun Oil to sponsor a Corvette down at Daytona.” He said that would be a great idea—“We can use our 260 fuel”—and that was my relationship starting, I think, with about a $1000 sponsorship to go to Daytona and run in the 24 Hour. We ran in Sebring and that really started the race program, and I met Mark Donohue.
R&T: How would you define your relationship with Mark Donohue?
Mark was a driver with Jay Signore, who in fact introduced us at Lime Rock. He said, “You should see this guy driving this Elva Courier.” I got to know Mark and he was a very serious young man and interested in moving up in the series. He and I worked together. He moved to Philadelphia and, quite honestly, we became teammates. I had to go out and raise the sponsorship and do most of the logistics and some of the strategy, and he helped work at the shop, drove the truck and it was really a team effort. Our commitment to Sun was that we’d come to Indy and win the race in the first three years. We obviously had a great chance in 1971 and went on to win in ’72.
R&T: So, from the start, you were thinking about Indianapolis?
That’s right, and the United States Road Racing Championship, too. And we had the factory Camaros in the ’60s, and we won the [Trans-Am] championship against the Mustangs and the Cougars, racing against Parnelli [Jones] and [Dan] Gurney and those guys. It was a lot of fun racing in the early days.
R&T: You went into Formula 1 and NASCAR for a period of time and you pulled out of them and concentrated on Indy-car racing. Why did you do that?
We wanted to focus on our Indy-car team. As we were able to put sponsorship back together, Formula 1 really didn’t fit because it was external to the United States. All of our sponsors, all of our businesses were located in the U.S., and we really wanted to focus on U.S. racing. Certainly Indianapolis is the cornerstone of a lot of our racing activities. We had the opportunity to get back into racing with Rusty [Wallace] in NASCAR and, of course, we had the [open-wheel] split and those other things that have taken place, and now we’re involved with the American Le Mans Series with Porsche.
R&T: I think that was an expansion that surprised a lot of people, that you would go back to sports-car racing at this point.
It was something that Tim Cindric [president, Penske Racing] and I talked about. We thought we’d like to have another venue. We could start to see other drivers. It would give us a chance to build more team members. And with Porsche’s return after our successful run in the ’70s with the 917/30 in Can-Am, plus the fact we’re one of the largest Porsche dealers in the U.S., it gave us a chance to represent a brand that we sell.
R&T: How do you view the ALMS/Grand-Am split?
They are really two different series. The technology is much greater in ALMS and you’ve got the factory teams with Audi and Aston Martin and now Porsche. You’ve got Acura coming in. This is a different series.
The Grand-Am is basically limited to what chassis you run and then you have an engine combination. To me, I don’t know that there’s a competing situation there. They’re both operating a number of races. We happen to have the opportunity with the support of Porsche to go with ALMS. We’d like to run maybe a car or two cars in Daytona, maybe a couple of those races. We’d have to get those cars, but we could run a Porsche motor to compete in the 24 Hours of Daytona.
R&T: That brings us to the open-wheel situation. Everybody looks to you for guidance because you’ve been in the sport and been so successful. There have been many rumors about an IndyCar/Champ Car unification deal coming soon. Do you know how valid they are?
I was involved in discussions with Jerry Forsythe and Kevin Kalkhoven two years ago and it just seemed to be very difficult based on things they wanted to have happen, and what Tony [George] had to do to be able to come to an agreement. Mario Andretti tried a year ago and it really fell on deaf ears. I’ve heard a lot of the rhetoric in 2006. The question is, is the Indy 500 the greatest race in the world? I can tell you that my sponsors are interested in us racing at Indy and then building on a series from there. That’s one of the main reasons we moved from CART into the Indy Racing League.
There was a lot of concern because IRL was all ovals; there’s a great transition now to four or five road races. With St. Petersburg, we’re getting some traction at some of these tracks in new markets, and to me, that’s going to help us and our competitors. The biggest impact is cost. I think Tony and [Brian] Barnhart have really looked at cost and with this single-engine program in 2006 and also a common chassis for the next three years, we’re running cars today in races that we owned last year. That was unheard of three or four years ago. And at Indy, with one engine for practice and qualifying and one engine for the race, we might have had four or five engines per car [instead of 10] in the past. So, today, the cost of the product is much better.
The TV deal that IRL has is superior to Champ Car’s. Now, Champ Car has some dates like Long Beach, which I think are great markets to race in, but there might be alternatives to that. My feeling is that if we’re going to get together, we all have to get in the same room. All the people who want to see it happen—Kalkhoven, Tony George, all the stakeholders. These would be the team owners, the tire companies, the engine companies. Let’s work out a schedule. If we can’t agree on a schedule, I don’t know how we can race. Once you put out a schedule, what are the rules going to be? It’s my understanding that right now Kevin Kalkhoven wants to build a brand-new car. We have many, many cars here today in IRL which we’ve proven to be safe, they’re inexpensive, they’re reliable both on ovals and road courses. It would be foolish to come up with a brand-new car that everybody would have to buy for several hundred thousand dollars. So, that’s obviously a critical point.
Then, what’s going to be the engine? From my perspective, Honda has a great program and if someone else wants to come in with an equal engine, I think we can do that. If Kalkhoven wants to run a Cosworth and we have the Honda, it would be great for our competition and you make your choice.
I think the single chassis is important because we get the benefit of the used vehicles. After the season, someone wants to buy a used car, they can buy them for $100,000–$150,000, which gets somebody in. Look at the 33rd car [on the grid this year] at Indianapolis: [Paul] Diatlovich put together a bunch of pieces and he’s in the race. That’s the way it was in the old days. You didn’t have to come with U.S. Bank…you could come here with a couple of guys who wanted to go to the Indy 500. I’m less optimistic than most people that [IRL/Champ Car] will come together because you’ve got strong business people in Kalkhoven and certainly, Jerry Forsythe, who is committed to maybe not see it come together without holding onto a whole lot of control, and I don’t think that’s going to happen with Tony George.
R&T: Can the IRL build its own series?
I have a good feeling right now coming out of the race in St. Petersburg. We had a strong showing in Motegi [Japan]. I think that’s the only international race we’ll have. Most of the U.S. sponsors want to see us racing here. Canada would be fine, Mexico would be fine, kind of NAFTA. I think with the schedule we have, the TV ratings aren’t the greatest, but they’re better. I think Danica [Patrick] has brought a lot of interest to the sport, which is what we need. You need a fresh spark-plug. I think IRL has a solid management team with Barnhart and his people. They’ll stay the course. If we could get together [with Champ Car], it would be a great solution, but what would happen? You’d have four or five teams moving into one series or the other. I don’t think it would be a mass exodus. There would be more competition. But the racing today, the top teams in IRL [means] 10 cars at every race can win the race. I think that’s pretty amazing.
R&T: What do you see as the state of NASCAR?
I think NASCAR has escalated itself to a sport that millions of fans are following. The Busch Series is a great series to take up a new driver, it’s solid. As I’ve said before, these big tracks have been built based upon NASCAR. These $200–$250 million tracks need to get some oval open-wheel racing. You can’t afford to justify those kind of expenditures. I think the stars have been built in NASCAR, and sponsors migrate to NASCAR when they can. The only issue is the price of poker today is moving up. It’s probably $5 or $6 million to run an IRL team up front without the cost of the driver. It’s probably $20 million to run a first-class team in NASCAR. The costs have gone up substantially. You run twice as many races. You’ve got more people, you’ve got more travel, which adds to that cost.
R&T: Do you see sports cars, ALMS and Grand-Am, being able to carve out their own niche?
I think we’ve seen a lot more interest in sports cars. It’s kind of back to the roots. It’s a different clientele than maybe goes to NASCAR, but to me, that’s the ability to use some of these tracks like Watkins Glen, Mid-Ohio and Lime Rock. Places that can’t afford to run a NASCAR or IndyCar race can run an ALMS or Grand-Am and get a nice crowd. I’ve been amazed at the interest, at how many people have been loyal sports-car fans who come up and say hello as we go to these ALMS races.
R&T: You’re winning races in NASCAR Cup, Indy Cars and sports cars. Did you ever think you’d be in this position when you started in 1966?
I guess you never look back. The big issue with us is, What do we want to do next? We’ve got to be sure we’re executing on all eight cylinders. Tim Cindric is the guy running the show. We’re consolidating. We closed Penske Cars down in the U.K., which used to be a real asset for us. We’re not able to build pieces anymore. We’re consolidating everything into our shop in Charlotte, where we’ll have one engineering department, one fabrication, one machine shop. We’ll have the ability to have more equipment. It’s a great way to cross-pollinate our people. We have people come up in sports cars and go over to NASCAR, NASCAR guys can go over to IndyCar, it’s just going to be tremendous because you’ll have 300 or 400 people there operating. You’ll be able to bring young people in and train them. One of the successes of our team is bringing in the young people at a lower level.
R&T: Do you have any hobbies?
I guess my hobby would be skiing. I’m co-owner of the Deer Valley Ski area out in Utah. So, our family are all skiers and I do that at Christmas time. I like golf and I’m very interested in playing. I’m not a great golfer, but it’s another hobby of mine.
R&T: You’re a member at Augusta National. Do you get a chance to play there?
I play a little bit, but I don’t get down there as much as I’d like. I’ve been a member there for about 10 years.
R&T: Money isn’t everything in racing, is it?
We get criticized sometimes for having big, big budgets, but our budgets aren’t any bigger than anybody else’s. What we’ve tried to do is effectively utilize our resources and prioritize the resources and the continuation of the process. You’ve got a guy like Tom German [Sam Hornish Jr.’s engineer] and Matt Jonsson [Hornish’s crew chief] and Rick Rinaman [Helio Castroneves’ crew chief] at Indy, these guys have been here probably a combined 50 years. I don’t think they want to go any place else and we’d certainly do everything in our power to have them stay with us.
R&T: What do you enjoy the most about still going to the races?
I just like the competitive juices. When you’re running, there’s so much to do. When I’m at the NASCAR races, I’ve never been in the pits during the race. I’m always up on top. I can see how we’re running. Are we competitive? I can look at the other drivers. To me, that’s the place to be in NASCAR. Obviously, I’ve had the opportunity to be, I guess, one of the coaches. I run Hornish’s car and I run the No. 6 car in ALMS. You’re calling the shots, you’re making the decisions. It’s like getting your quarterly earnings every weekend when you come to the racetrack.
R&T: You’re at an age when people think about retiring. What motivates you to keep going?
In my particular position, I like the challenge every day and the racing keeps me sharp from the standpoint of being competitive. I’ve grown up liking to work and I go to work every day with lots of challenges that will keep me around for a long time. If I can work in a game of golf or go skiing, I do that, but I still like to work.
R&T: Hornish won your 14th Indy 500 in May with a last-lap, last-second pass of Marco Andretti and it’s the second closest ever. Can you think of any that have been a greater finish than that?
Every one of them is exciting. I think you’re so emotional. All of a sudden, you wake up, and we won the race.
R&T: Did you ever think you’d win the race 14 times?
I love racing. The most fun I have is seeing the guys, the team members, perform, providing them with the tools, getting sponsors that stay with us. When you look at the 14 wins, there’s probably a hundred people at each one of those that made the difference. That’s why we won the race. It’s not me, it’s not Tim [Cindric]; it’s the people that execute, the unsung heroes who do this work day in, day out. This race gives you great momentum. I can tell you, that’s why we’re going to run here. I can run here as long as I can get guys like Cindric to put up with me.
R&T: With all the success you’ve had at Indianapolis, do you still have that same passion for this place, for being successful here?
This is the greatest race in the world and I love coming here. I look forward to it every year. We spend a lot of time and effort planning. It’s a great place.
