bob jennings' WORLD O' RACING
Penske's legacy
(completed
07/05/98)
Roger Penske leaves the garage area to prepare for the start of the 1985 "Indianapolis 500"
Bob Jennings
When I took this photo, about an hour prior to the start of the 1985 "Indianapolis 500," Roger Penske was the "lord of the domain," so to speak, at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
The previous May, Penske had seen one of his cars, driven by Rick Mears, score an "Indianapolis 500" win, for the fourth time, since Penske's debut, at Indianapolis, in 1969. Going into the 1985 "500," Penske had three cars, in the field, driven by Mears, Danny Sullivan and Al Unser, each with a good chance of winning.
At the finish of the 1985 race, the Miller American March - Cosworth, driven by Sullivan, brought a fifth Indianapolis victory to the Penske team.
At the end of Penske's 25 year Indianapolis career, his cars won ten times, including 1994, the final year a Penske car would start the "500." The following year, Penske walked away, from the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, in defeat. Neither of his two entries, driven by winners of four of the previous six Indianapolis events, Al Unser Jr. and Emerson Fittipaldi, were fast enough to make the field.
While the 1996 "Indianapolis 500" was being run, Penske was with the rest of the CART teams, running the "US 500," at Michigan.
Failure to qualify, for Indianapolis, in 1995, seemed to be the start of the downward spiral, for the Penske Indy car team. In the period since, Penske cars have won a total of six CART events; three by Al Unser Jr., in 1995, and three by Paul Tracy, last season.
The next time a Penske car wins a CART race, it will be the 100th Indy (championship) car win for the team. Al Unser Jr. had a close second, this season, at the new Twin Ring Motegi oval, in Japan, and a third, last month, in Milwaukee. Unser was fifth, two weeks ago, in Portland, but neither Unser, nor Alex Ribeiro, in the other Marlboro Penske - Mercedes, look like any kind of threat to the new kings of CART, Alex Zanardi and the Chip Ganassi Target Reynard - Hondas.
I'm intrigued by the decline of the most dominant and successful racing organization in the history of this form of motorsports.
Penske remains one of racing's most powerful forces. His power today, however, seems to exist in his growing list of racing venues. Penske owns Michigan Speedway, with two Winston Cup and one CART date. His second property, Nazareth Speedway, is a solid fixture on both the CART and NASCAR Busch Grand National calendars. He opened the Michigan clone, California Speedway, which has a Winston Cup and CART date. Last year, he was able to give Bruton Smith a "payback" for being beaten out of buying Atlanta Motor Speedway a few years ago. Penske won the contest with Smith to purchase the Rockingham oval, from the De Witt family. Under questionable circumstances, Ralph Sanchez was bought out of the Homestead complex, near Miami. Penske was one of the benefactors, purchasing approximately half the circuit, in partnership, with the France family's International Speedway Corporation (ISC).
Greg Penske has responsibility for the operation of Penske's racing venues, while his dad focuses on the growing family business empire.
In 1998, Penske has had a more visible presence in NASCAR, after buying Carl Haas' interest in the Kranefuss Haas Winston Cup team. Combining the Kranefuss car, driven by Jeremy Mayfield, with the Miller Lite Ford Taurus, Penske owns with driver Rusty Wallace and Don Miller, strategically, has brought a lot of Winston Cup points and a recent win, at Pocono, for Mayfield.
Penske owns Ilmor Engineering, in partnership with Mario Ilien, Paul Morgan and Mercedes Benz. The Ilmor Mercedes V8 turbo was the winner of CART's manufacturer's trophy, for building the most successful engine in 1997 CART competition. Ilmor supplies power to the Players Forsythe team, Pac West, Tony Bettenhausen and Carl Hogan, in addition to the Marlboro Penskes, driven by Unser and Ribeiro.
The Penske CART effort continues to flounder, however. John Travis replaced Nigel Bennett, for 1998, as chief designer of the Marlboro Penske cars, that are constructed at Penske Cars, in England. Perhaps this is where the major problem, in the CART program, lies. Penske is more or less forced into continuing to build his own cars or close the operation, in England, that has existed since the early 1970's, when Penske began his Formula One program. That means putting people out of jobs. Although benevolence has never been a public Penske trait, it has to be the only practical reason for his team not buying Reynards, like all but three other CART teams.
I feel that another reason for the big decline is due to a basic lack of enthusiasm, from Penske, since CART quit running the "Indianapolis 500." It's unlikely any of the CART "hard core" would ever admit that. Roger Penske always seemed to put the most focus on Indianapolis, even at the expense of the CART title. His biggest smiles seemed to come in Victory Lane, at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. I propose that missing Indianapolis, each May, has had a big impact on Roger Penske's motivation to win.
There's another possible reason for the slide.
During the Penske "heyday," it was well known that Roger controlled CART with an "iron fist." Penske floated a $7 million loan to CART until four years ago; the basis of the sanctioning body's financial structure. He basically decided who joined him on the CART board. He ran the rules discussions. From 1988, until Ford came into CART, in 1992, Penske decided who his competition would be by who he allowed to have access to the Ilmor Chevrolet V8 lease program.
When the Indianapolis Motor Speedway - CART separation turned into open "combat," in 1996, it seems as if the years of self serving, by the CART member teams, came to an end, with a unified front presented against Tony George's Indy Racing League. Perhaps, realizing he could no longer have the "unfair advantage," over his competition, Penske's competitive spirit wasn't as strong, playing on a level field.
Who knows. It's all conjecture.
What isn't conjecture, however, is the reality that CART did a lousy job of managing Indy car racing. While NASCAR grew and then exploded into nationwide popularity, CART filled its schedule with ridiculous street circuits and built an environment where drivers with backgrounds like the majority of the traditional competitors of Indy car racing had no chance of competing. The drivers who race with CART today don't resemble a group of performers I recognize as Indy car stars. Given the steady decline, in popularity, of Indy car racing, it's pretty obvious most racing fans don't either. With Penske leading the way, CART competition became so expensive, that new teams have been scarce. With the unified front, CART remains today what it always has been, a closed expensive society, dependent on corporate support for its survival.
Penske had a guiding hand in this direction. His "puppet," John Frasco, pulled a fortune out of CART, through 1989, with Penske's permission, and put together the components of Indy car racing - CART style, which I blame for the sad state of the sport today.
It's obvious that big league open wheel racing is in danger of disappearing and if that happens, we can thank Roger Penske for playing a big part.
A lot of CART fans crucify Tony George for going his own way, with the Indy Racing League. I'm thankful, however, that the Indianapolis Motor Speedway has made a sincere effort to preserve the sport before it passed from the scene.