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Thursday, August 30
Penske want more than Indy 500 win
By Tom Rife
Scripps Howard News Service
The flying start of the Miller Lite 200 was less than a half hour
away.
Marlboro Team Penske drivers Gil de Ferran and Helio Castroneves
already had departed a plush motorhome for the official introductions
at the 2.4-mile Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course in northern Ohio.
|  | | Roger Penske, right, with defending CART champion Gil de Ferran, is looking for a second straight series crown in 2001. |
The tedious, pricey preparation was over. The strategy meeting had
been held.
And despite the pressure that goes along with trying to win the
race -- and the CART FedEx Championship -- the 'Captain' seemed to be
taking it all in stride as he sat calmly in the rear of the comfy
coach.
Like the wheels of his race cars and his many business endeavors,
Roger Penske's mind was rolling. Even at the age of 64 -- and with the
world on a string -- he showed no signs of easing off the gas pedal.
"My focus is really to try to keep the continuity of our team
members, to minimize turnover from the standpoint of all of our key
guys," Penske said pensively. "A lot of time is devoted to the
support of the sponsors. We have to try to develop the vision for the
future. You know, where do we go? You run a business not by exception.
You run it by anticipation. That's kind of been my formula for a long
time."
A long time, indeed. He drove his first official Sports Car Club of
America race in 1958 and has been setting standards in racing and in
corporate circles ever since.
Most Americans, though, aren't familiar with Penske as the man who
presides over 29,000 employees at more than 3,000 worldwide locations.
Instead, they know him as the stone-face with the radio headset.
They know him as the boss who makes his way through both good times
and bad by doggedly refusing to give in.
His individual prosperity well documented, Penske, a racing man's
dream, is all about team.
"It takes people. We call it human capital," he said. "That's
what it takes to win. In the racing business, you have your quarterly
earnings every weekend. Racing is an important partner to our
businesses. It's a common thread throughout all of them. We use it as
customer entertainment, we use it to show quality. We show how we
build teamwork. We also show how you've gotta drive through some tough
times. You don't always win. In fact, you lose more than you win."
As for the 2001 season, there is light at the end of the
backstretch. Penske and his teammates have achieved one of two goals
for the year.
In May, they not only returned to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway
and the Indy 500 for the first time since failing to qualifying for
the race in 1995. They took the gamble, accepted the challenge, and
won the 85th annual 500 with Brickyard rookie Helio Castroneves -- in
his second season with Penske -- at the controls.
It was Penske's 11th Indy 500 victory as a car owner.
The first was in 1972 with Mark Donohue the pilot.
From Mears to Fittipaldi, from Sullivan to Unsers going by the
names of Al, Al Jr. and Bobby, Penske has fielded cars for some of the
best drivers ever to strap on a helmet.
But Indy was only one race and it had no bearing on the outcome of
this year's CART battle. Castroneves leads the points going into
Sunday's Molson Indy event in Vancouver, and de Ferran is third behind
Kenny Brack.
Penske wants another national championship in the worst way.
"Going back to Indy and winning certainly wipes away the bad taste
I had in my mouth when we didn't qualify back in '95," he said. "But
our goal here this year is to win the championship in CART.
"To win as many races and as many poles as we can. I wouldn't say
that just because you won Indy this year, you won the season. I think
we've got to be consistent. Helio and Gil are having a great year and
we need to repeat what we did last year. Then I'll say we had a great
season."
America loves winners. But it also can be a harsh environment for
those who win so much.
Justified or not, Penske-like winners can acquire villainous
personas.
When Championship Auto Racing Teams and the upstart Indy Racing
League became embroiled in a political, motorized chess match in 1996,
Penske, the founder of CART, was left not only to carry the torch for
his fellow team owners, but also to bear the brunt of the outrage from
open-wheel race fans.
Still, Penske pressed on to raise the bar.
"I guess people looked at us in a couple of different ways," he
lamented. "Maybe carrying the torch, and then we also were criticized
for having a conflict of interest because we owned race tracks and
built cars. You know, when we were down, people were telling us what
was wrong with our cars. On the other hand, I think some of the
current programs tracks are using benefited from what we did at
Michigan and some of our tracks from the standpoint of entertainment,
what we did for the press, things like that."
A man who has come to know Penske closely through 11 years of
coordinating Marlboro Team Penske's sponsorship, Pete Twiddy of
Naples, Fla. sees Penske as a man whose motives and image are often
misunderstood.
"Roger's always looked at as the bad guy. He's even looked at as
the bad guy here (at Mid- Ohio). He doesn't even attend the owners
meetings anymore. If he just brings up anything - whether it's a good
idea or a bad idea, people just assume he's trying to get an unfair
advantage.
"People are always trying to knock down the guy on top," Twiddy
went on. "Roger's always been on top, so he's always the target. I've
been on the other side of the fence, when he wasn't my guy. And I
understand the perceptions. But when you're close to him and you
realize the passion he has, and the commitment, he's just
incredible."
One who understands the business side of racing, Twiddy admires
Penske's genius in that regard, too.
"He's able to work all his relationships better than anybody I've
ever seen,' said Twiddy. "He's the king of leverage and being able to
make the most out of his relationships. And I've never seen anybody
work like this man in my life. Literally, he goes 'til he passes out.
And then he wakes up and he starts working again. It's amazing to
watch him work, it really is."
Tom Rife writes for the Naples Daily News in Florida. Send this story to a friend | Most sent stories
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