Photo Courtesy of Chevrolet
On May 13, 2016, Team Penske owner Rodger Penske held a media conference. The only difference was instead of the media asking the questions it would be his four drivers that would be asking them.
Penske will be driving one of the pace cars to lead the field before the start of the 100th Running of the Indianapolis 500 on May 29.
Helio Castroneves wanted to know how Penske is going to be the pace car driver as well as his strategist.
“I’ll call up Chitwood and say how I can come down to pit lane and spin it right in front of your pit,” Penske said laughing. “They’ll open the door, I’ll jump out. That’s my plan.”
Simon Pagenaud wanted to know that when Penske opened his first dealership did he ever imagine that I would become so huge and that he would end up owning race teams in both IndyCar and NASCAR.
“That’s a good question. Interesting. I was a racer myself back at that point. I was involved in the sports car club in Philadelphia, “Penske stated. “A fellow named George McKean was the treasurer. He asked me if I would take over that job. He lost his son tragically. He said, would you come and work for me as the general manager? I said I’d come, but I wanted to have the opportunity to buy the business. That was in August of 1963. At that point I went to work. He said okay in ’65, I’d have the opportunity to buy it.
“I remember going to see the folks at General Motors. I had a relationship with them because of the Corvair and other things we’ve been involved with. Chevrolet said that I couldn’t be a Chevrolet dealer if I was a race driver. So Jim Rathman, who was another one that raced here, had been successful. That was very easy for me, I gave up. I tell the story about my dad. I needed $50,000 to get this deal done. I remember we drove to Pittsburgh. He took $50,000 out of his retirement account. He said, Roger, if you lose this, I’ll go back to work.
“That’s how we got started. I never realized what would happen. But from Philadelphia to Southfield, Michigan, where we had a great store, these were the really early days. We built the whole business, quite honestly, from that first platform.”
Juan Pablo Montoya wonders if Penske is upset that none of his kids are involved with racing considering how passionate he is about the sport.
“My son Roger raced a little bit, I’m not sure, a little less than the Indy cars,” Penske said. “I had them pretty busy in business early on. They were in athletics. I had a garage, in college I spent more time in my garage than I did in the classroom. I had them going to college. A little different discipline. They’re all involved, very interested in the sport. Never really wanted to do that. I have one grandson who is driving some go-karts now. We’ll see what happens.”
Will Power wanted to know if Penske misses driving race cars.
“Everybody asks that question,” Penske added. “I had accomplished enough at that point. I had the opportunity, and Mark knows this, the Chaparral was a vision done by Frank Winchell and Jim Hall. I had a chance in my last year of racing to win almost everything with that car. Then the call said I wanted to be a businessman or a manager. I had the opportunity to come here and do my test. My job, I couldn’t get off. Andretti took it. He obviously went in one direction, I went in the other. So I think the story is pretty complete.”
