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Monday, May 28
Penske scores one for the ages
Reuters
INDIANAPOLIS – Six years ago
Roger Penske, the Indy 500's most successful car owner ever,
left the Brickyard in shame. On Sunday he went home in glory.
Penske's drivers Helio Castroneves and Gil de Ferran, both
Brazilians, swept the top two places in the 85th running of
America's most popular motor race. It was one more Indy 500
triumph to swell Penske's record total to 11.
|  | | Helio Castroneves, left, and Roger Penske, right, lead CART's domination at the Indy 500 on Sunday. |
In his previous victory, in 1994, his then driver, Al Unser
Jr., had crushed the opposition.
But the next year, Penske could not qualify either Unser or
Emerson Fittipaldi, twice a winner for Brazil. "When I think
about today's race and the finish one-two, it kind of takes away
the pain that we had in 1995," Penske said.
"And I can tell you, walking back to the garage with Al and
Emerson after we didn't make the field and coming up to victory
circle today is a big difference."
Penske's record racing Indy-type cars is unmatched. He has
taken eight CART series titles and 10 series championships
overall including two from USAC, from which CART broke away. He
has 92 race victories in CART, 106 overall.
But the troubles in 1995 were a harbinger of a CART winless
spell from May 1997 to May 2000, when the team triumphed in
Nazareth, Pennsylvania.
Penske revamped his entire racing team at the end of 1999,
hiring de Ferran and Greg Moore as drivers. When Moore died in
an accident at the final race in 1999, Penske signed
Castroneves.
When he returned to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, the
place that established him as a major power in motor racing,
Penske felt like a rookie, worrying that again he might not
qualify.
His cars had new engines that had not turned a single lap
before Sunday and he had two drivers who had a total of one
race-lap between them at the Speedway. Castroneves was a
newcomer to the track and de Ferran had raced one lap for
another team at the Brickyard in 1995.
"Last night (Saturday) we watched tapes of last year's race,
of starts, restarts and pit stops, maybe 10 times last night,
because we hadn't been here in a while," Penske said.
All the work paid off as his team performed as if they had
never left. "This was a big day," Penske said. "A great win.
It'll go down in the records."
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