50 years in racing: Respect for Penske goes beyond track
The nerve pain Rick Mears suffers every day of his life as he climbs from bed and walks to his kitchen table reminds the Indy 500 legend of his deep appreciation of Roger Penske.
“He saved my legs — my feet,” said Mears of Penske, who nurtured the young off-road racer from Bakersfield, Calif., into one of America’s all-time open-wheel greats. “Absolutely, he did. The doctors wanted to cut both feet off. Roger stepped in, said we are not going to settle for that.
“Roger got me in a helicopter — something out of a “M*A*S*H” episode — and then flew me in his plane to Indianapolis, where CART medical director Dr. Stephen Olvey oversaw my surgeries and recovery.”
Mears was reliving the aftermath of his horrific crash during practice for the Molson Indy Montreal race at Sanair Super Speedway, in Saint-Pie, Quebec, in September 1984. It left Mears’ feet a mangled a mess of torn flesh and splintered bone and doctors in a Montreal hospital with a decision whether or not to amputate.
Penske was having none of it.
“My feet were just bits and pieces,” recalled Mears, who had won the Indy 500 for Penske that May. “He got me out of the hospital and down to Indianapolis and on the road to recovery. All the time, he said, ‘Relax. Do what the doctors tell you. Your seat (in the race car) will always be there when you come back.’ ”
Mears returned to the wheel 10 months later and would go on to win a record-equaling four Indy 500s before retiring in 1992. He really never did leave the Penske fold and, at 64, works as a consultant at Team Penske, helping young drivers and working the IndyCar paddock.
“Roger means everything to me — as a former driver and a friend,” Mears said. “He gave me the tools to put the numbers on the board but never put pressure on me in the cockpit. Roger is all about people. He instills confidence in people. That support makes you dig deeper for him — pay him back.”
Penske, the iconic Birmingham motorsports figure and billionaire businessman, is celebrating 50 years as a race team owner in 2016. From Mears to last year’s Indy 500 winner, Juan Pablo Montoya, there are dozens of drivers, hundreds of racing personnel and thousands of business associates and Penske employees who would like to honor “The Captain.”
On Wednesday, Penske’s family and about a 1,000 of his closest friends, including Mears, will gather not far from his race shop in Charlotte, N.C., to celebrate a legacy that began in 1966 when Roger, then a hard-charging young sports car driver, climbed from the cockpit to pursue a business career built around motorsports.
Since Penske’s first foray as a team owner at the 1966 24 Hours of Daytona, his cars have produced more than 420 major race wins, over 480 pole positions and 28 national championships across open-wheel, stock car and sports car racing competition. In that period, Penske has earned 16 Indianapolis 500 victories, two Daytona 500 wins and victories in the 24 Hours of Daytona, 12 Hours of Sebring and Formula One.
“When I go back and look at all the photos, drivers, cars and successes we’ve had, it is amazing,” said Penske, 78, before collecting a Baby Borg Trophy with Montoya at the Renaissance Center on Wednesday evening for their 2015 Indy 500 victory. “The only disappointment is it’s 50 years and I know there’s not another 50. That’s the only thing that bothers me. But, I guess we all get to the checkered flag at some time.”
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Penske has been hard on the gas since he began racing on road courses around the country in the late 1950s through 1965 and then threw his hat into running car dealerships and a race team. In the years between, Penske ran a who’s who list of CART/Champ Car racers, including Gary Bettenhausen, Mark Donohue, Tom Sneva, Mario Andretti, Bobby Unser, Al Unser, Al Unser Jr., Emerson Fittipaldi, Danny Sullivan, Paul Tracy and Gil de Ferran.
His current stable of IndyCar drivers at Team Penske boasts Montoya, three-time Indy 500 champion Helio Castroneves, Will Power and Simon Pagenaud, while his 2016 NASCAR Sprint Cup team features two of the series’ best — 2012 Cup champ Brad Keselowski of Rochester Hills and multiple race winner Joey Logano.
“The relationships I have developed with my drivers, I’ve loved every bit of it — from my first Indy 500 win with Mark Donohue in 1972 to our 16th in 2015 with Montoya,” said Penske, who calls races for both his IndyCar and NASCAR drivers from atop the pit boxes. “We are looking for our 17th in May.”
This year is the 100th running of the Indianapolis 500 at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
“We will have four cars capable of winning in the race,” Penske said. “Each driver is in equal equipment. That’s always been the way we run things.”
Castroneves, in town last week at the North American International Auto Show at Cobo Center, knew he was with the right organization when he joined Team Penske in 2001.
“My mother always said, you got to be surrounded by good people,” Castroneves said. “Roger Penske has always done that: picked good people to work for him. Roger is an amazing human being. His passion for racing is just incredible. There’s one word that describes Roger Penske, and that is ‘respect.’ People respect Roger, and he respects them. Roger is a powerful person but humble as well.”
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It was Penske reaching out to Montoya that convinced the Colombian-born driver to return to IndyCar full time in 2015.
“Roger is just an amazing person” said the two-time Indy 500 champion and former F1 and NASCAR driver. “It’s a pleasure to work with a guy like that. He is a person who leads by example. I wanted to be in a winning car again, and Roger offered me a job. That’s the No. 1 reason I’m back.”
Chip Ganassi has gone tooth and nail against Penske as an IndyCar/NASCAR team owner over the years. In Detroit for a Chevrolet Racing presentation recently, he gave his praise to his rival.
“Where does he rank?” Ganassi said. “Unquestionably No. 1. Unquestionably. What everybody needs to remember is that racing in this country and what it is today, without Roger Penske’s involvement, starting in the mid-’60s, it wouldn’t be where it is today.
“Talk about raising the bar, making a race team presentable. Talk about being professional. Roger set the bar in so many areas of the sport and continues to raise the bar. There’s never a race that happens that hasn’t got Roger Penske’s fingerprints all over it. He raises your game whenever you compete against him.
“People talk about success our team has had. I was just chasing Roger Penske.”
As a sports car driver named by Sports Illustrated as the SCCA driver of the year in 1961, Penske could easily have raced at Indianapolis. He actually turned down a car that Mario Andretti took his rookie test in. Starting in two F1 races in America and finishing a best of eighth, Penske — who was born in Shaker Heights, Ohio, and adopted Detroit as his home around 1970 — also might have gone onto a successful motorsports career in Europe.
Instead, he opened several Chevy dealerships, raised a family and began building a business empire — at the same time he ran a race team.
“We’d never have built our business with Chevy and Ford, and for sure, Dodge and Mercedes,” Penske said. “The trigger for all that has been racing. The racing industry has opened up those doors and has built our brand.”
From SCCA racer to Chevy dealer, to owner of Team Penske and race tracks like Michigan International Speedway, Roger Penske has shown no signs of slowing down. His team is winning Indy 500s, his Chevrolet Detroit Belle Isle Grand Prix is back and a key part of the annual Detroit sports calendar. His city is rising like a phoenix from the ashes of mismanagement.
“I’ve seen Detroit at its height, and I’ve seen where it has been, sadly, too,” said Penske, chairman of Super Bowl XL in Detroit. “But to be part of the renaissance here over the last eight or so years, it’s amazing to see every week things that are making it better.
“I think the Super Bowl for me was my marriage to the city. I want to keep that marriage strong.”
Contact Mike Brudenell: mbrudenell@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @mikebrudenell.
Ganassi not a fan of two races in Detroit
Penske Power
Who: Roger S. Penske.
Born: Shaker Heights, Ohio.
Age: 78.
Home: Birmingham.
Family: Wife Kathy; children Roger Jr., Gregory, Blair, Mark and Jay.
Nickname: The Captain.
Career: Former sports car racer; owner of Team Penske (Charlotte, N.C.) and Penske Corporation (Bloomfield Hills).
Key accomplishments: Won a record 16 Indianapolis 500s, two Daytona 500s and a NASCAR Sprint Cup; was chairman of Super Bowl XL in Detroit and responsible for the return of the Chevrolet Detroit Belle Isle Grand Prix; inducted into the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America and the International Motorsports Hall of Fame.
In 2016: The “Celebrating the 50th Anniversary of Team Penske” exhibit will appear through January at the NASCAR Hall of Fame in Charlotte, N.C., and at Indianapolis Motor Speedway from February through the running of the 100th Indy 500 on May 29.