Penske still in hot pursuit

At 71, car owner isn't slowing down at Indy

Roger Penske has interests outside of racing. "The great thing is that anything to do with sports in Detroit is a top priority for me," he said. (FILE/Steve Nesius/Associated Press)

INDIANAPOLIS - Legendary car owner Roger Penske was sitting in a leather lounge chair in his plush motorcoach yesterday morning at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. For the last 39 years, the Penske name has been synonymous with success at the fabled Brickyard, with 14 Indy 500 triumphs by 10 drivers, including four trips to Victory Lane in the last seven races.

A diehard Detroit sports fan who is a season ticket-holder of the Red Wings, Pistons, Lions, and Tigers, Penske seemed charged by the Pistons' 103-97 victory over the Celtics in Game 2 of the Eastern Conference finals Thursday night in Boston.

"Stuckey did a hell of a job, didn't he?" Penske said, referring to Pistons rookie guard Rodney Stuckey, who came off the bench to score 13 points. "You know, there was a little bit of uncertainty about whether to go with [Chauncey] Billups or to play Stuckey. I thought Billups got hurt again [Thursday] night, but he seems to be moving pretty well."

Imagine that. Roger Penske, a captain of industry who was called upon to head up Detroit's organizing effort for Super Bowl XL and who revived the open-wheel race at Detroit's Belle Isle Park, caught up in the city's sports scene. Where does he find the time, especially now that the 92d Indianapolis 500 is just a day away?

"The great thing is that anything to do with sports in Detroit is a top priority for me," Penske said. "It's the glue that's holding that city and that region together, all of our sports, because of all the issues we've had in Michigan. You've had 300,000 people leave the state due to the auto industry and supply base being eroded. So where we can get excitement, there's no question that sports is a common thread for people in Detroit and Michigan."

Asked if he'd ever consider buying a sports team, Penske said, "No, I think I own one right now. What's a player roster on an NFL team? About 45? Well, when you look at it, we have probably 500 people associated with our racing programs, it's bigger than most sports teams. When you think about our total personnel roster, that means total people involved. For us, it's a $100 million business that we have to raise through prize money and sponsorship to be able to support the efforts.

"When you think of budgets and salary caps, we're pretty close to that," he added. "In racing, we have the ability to utilize it as a customer-entertainment, employee activity. If you're a stick-and-ball sport, you can't take 50 customers into the dugout or the locker room. Here at Indianapolis, we can have hospitality that designates our team in the sport and you don't get that in the stick-and-ball sports. Our ability for us to attract sponsorship is so much greater.

"The tools that I see in the NFL, hockey, and baseball, etc., is that you get in early, you build a new stadium, and get the benefits of the suites. I have a lot more levers to pull to cover the cost. My formula is a zero-sum game; whatever we take in, we expect to spend at the end of the year.

"By doing that, we have the ability to take any extra cash flow and invest it back into equipment, our shop, technology, and things like that, and you probably don't have that in the stick-and-ball sports."

What, then, has been Penske's winning formula at Indianapolis?

"I think it's been our people," said Penske, whose last triumph here came in 2006 with Sam Hornish Jr. behind the wheel. "The low turnover of our people and the consistency of our people, personnel, patience, and I think just the experience in calling the strategy when the race has paid off.

"The other thing that's been really important is that we've had the ability to attract the sponsors, so we've had consistent financial support over the years I've been here," he added. "I wasn't running around on April 1 trying to figure out how I was going to pay for my tire bill."

That, however, has never been an issue for a man who is known around these parts as The Captain.

Checkered past

Penske Racing has come to symbolize its 71-year-old patriarch's pursuit of excellence. So far, Penske Racing has recorded 299 victories, including IndyCar, NASCAR, and sports car.

In February, Penske finally captured NASCAR's season opener when Ryan Newman, with the drafting support of teammate and runner-up Kurt Busch, won the Daytona 500. In March, Penske's American Le Mans Series outfit captured the 12 Hours of Sebring. Tomorrow, Penske will attempt the rare trifecta by going for his 15th Indy 500 triumph when rookie Ryan Briscoe starts third in the 33-car grid, on the outside of the front row, while two-time Indy 500 winner Helio Castroneves starts fourth in Row 2.

"It would be incredible," Castroneves said. "You're talking about some of the biggest races in America, if not the world. You're talking about the Daytona 500, you're talking about the 12 Hours of Sebring, and the Indy 500. And he's been in all of it. It would be a great honor to give this race to him."

Penske has always carried himself in a business-like manner - scrubbed, starched, and serious - but Castroneves seemed to get him to unbutton his button-downed CEO persona when he won the second of back-to-back Indy 500s in 2002 and persuaded Penske to join in the party by climbing the fences at the Brickyard.

"That was amazing," said Castroneves, who held Penske to a wager he made following the 2001 triumph. "I said to him, 'How come you never climbed the fence?' He said, 'I'll make you a bet. If you win another Indy next year, you bet I'll climb the fence.'

"I don't remember him doing it, but I saw pictures of it later and I said to him, 'Wow, you're really a man of your word.' "

But Castroneves didn't fully realize what Indianapolis meant to his car owner until he returned in 2001, after spending almost seven years away from the Brickyard as a member of the now-defunct Championship Auto Racing Teams during its open-wheel split with the Indy Racing League.

"When we came back, it was a big deal for him," Castroneves said. "I remember when I went out to qualify, he was very touchy about it. He said, 'No, no. Get in the race. Let's not play around. It's a big deal.' I didn't know that they had not qualified the last time he had been there [in 1995]."

When the CART-IRL split happened in 1996, Penske spent Memorial Day at Michigan International Speedway.

"I remember it was '96, we ran up at Michigan [in the US 500], and it was a weak attempt to say, 'Hey, we're strong; you're strong,' " Penske recalled. "It didn't take us too long to figure out, from a sponsor perspective, where we absolutely needed to be on Memorial Day.

"If there ever was a time to get out and stay out, it would have been at that point. Probably one of the more rewarding times in our career here was when we came back. There were so many signs: 'Glad to see you back.' They accepted us with open arms when we came back in 2001 and that was pretty rewarding from the standpoint of Penske Racing.

"I'm a team player and we all couldn't look back and it's a decision we made [to go with CART, then defect for the IRL]," he added. "Some of us stayed the course when Champ Car was formed. No question if we stayed in the other camp, no question we would have lost our sponsor."

But, ever the keen businessman, Penske moved with the times. And he remains a dominating figure in the Greatest Spectacle in Racing.

"Not unlike Honda or Firestone, Roger has been a great partner and he obviously has got 14 wins," said IRL founder and CEO Tony George. "He was honored the other night at the old-timers' recognition dinner, and he is an old-timer. It was interesting seeing that footage when he was a newcomer and he had dark hair, but was very confident. He had a vision and has pursued it for the last 30-some years and is as passionate about this place as anybody I know. He's a special guy and I know it means a lot to him."