THOUGHTS ON HOW WINNING THE SECOND DAYTONA 500 WAS DIFFERENT FROM THE FIRST. “It took us a long time to get to that level to win. We were close a couple years, but I think that showed real teamwork with Kurt (Busch) pushing the 12 car across the line with Ryan Newman. But to see Joey this year, the strength that he had in 2014 and come back right out of the box and with a new system on the Chase, that’s pretty special to have that guy locked in the Chase on the first weekend. I have to say that was special also.”
WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT THE STATUS OF THE CHARTER WITH NASCAR? SOME ARE SAYING THEY THINK IT WILL GET DONE BEFORE DAYTONA AND SOME DON’T? WHAT DO YOU THINK? “You’re asking the question about the owner-charter, at this particular time I know Rob Kauffman and the teams are together with NASCAR. I think there’s been great progress. To me, from my vantage point, I’m not sitting in the meetings myself, I think we’ve elected a group of people that understand where we’re trying to go together. I think NASCAR has been very open. The car owners have been open and I’d say this is a long-term business relationship we’re trying to develop and it has to be done carefully. It has to be done the right way and we have to think about all the constituents, and I think that’s what’s going on, so I feel very good about it and hopefully we’ll have an outcome here shortly.”
HOW PROUD ARE YOU WHEN YOU SEE RUSTY UP THERE AND HOW DOES HE COMPARE TO YOUR OTHER GUYS? “RW, as I call him, is one of the special guys at Team Penske. To think about what he brought to us in the early days, we wouldn’t be in NASCAR if it wasn’t for Rusty. When you compare him to Brad or Joey, they all have their own traits. They’re all special traits and these guys deliver. Rusty won many races for us – 18 races in two years, which is amazing when you think about Earnhardt and the guys we were competing with – but he’s also been a friend of mine off the race track in business. He’s taught me a lot and I think together we partnered and I’m so glad to see what he’s been able to accomplish as a driver and as he’s gotten out of the car. I think when you look at Brad and you look at Joey, these guys their runway is so long ahead of them and I think that they’re gonna have an opportunity to win a lot more races and, to me, hopefully I can help them build the rest of their career – not only on the track but off the track.”
YOUR INFLUENCE ON PEOPLE DOESN’T JUST STOP ON THE TRACK, BUT IT EXTENDS TO LIFE AS WELL. CAN YOU TALK ABOUT THAT? “This is a team sport when it comes to a lot of things, not only on the race track, the guys over-the-wall or the engineers or the guys that build the car, but it’s also from my perspective I need to be sure that our drivers and the team understands what the business equation is and I think that’s important because today without sponsors, without OEM relationships, we wouldn’t be sitting here to have the opportunity to compete in NASCAR. To me it’s 360 degrees. You can’t just be a great driver. You’ve got to know the engineering side with the business side and certainly there’s no question the commercial value that these drivers bring to our team is important, so they have to be the type of individuals that would represent our brand on a worldwide basis.”
THE WAY YOU KEEP YOUR SHOP IN SUCH IMMACULATE CONDITION MUST SERVE AS A SELLING POINT FOR POTENTIAL SPONSORS. “We’ve tried over the years to set a standard of excellence. It’s amazing when things are clean and they’re neat and you can see what’s going on makes a difference, whether it’s our race shop or one of our service centers in our automotive business or our truck leasing locations. We expect that. It’s safer. It’s better and it projects the image we want to be and that’s someone that has quality and can execute at the very top of their game.”
THERE’S A GREAT ATTENTION TO DETAIL AT YOUR SHOP, CORRECT? “You probably didn’t know that I went to military school, so I just brought a little bit of that back when I had to stand at attention and shine my shoes, so I’m making the guys do that now themselves.”
WHAT DID YOU LOOK FOR AS THE BEST TRAIT FOR A DRIVER IN THE EARLY DAYS? “Back in the early days we didn’t understand how important the technology was and the interface between engineering. We didn’t have engineers in those days. We didn’t understand aerodynamics. We didn’t really understand mechanical grip, but as that started to evolve we started to have people that would understand. Mark Donahue was a perfect example. He brought that technology transfer over to us from the drawing board back into the race car and onto the race track. To me, today I look at drivers that have of course won something. I don’t care at what level, but they have to know how to win. I think they have to be able to communicate with our people, to be a team player, because if you have a team of three or four drivers only one wins, so they’re gonna have to know when they’re second or third or whatever they might be. So they’ve got to be team players and on top of that I think the most important thing is they’ve got to be able to understand the technology of the cars. Our drivers today can almost take those cars apart and understand each piece of them, and they have to. They spend more time at the race shop than they have to. They have to be in condition and today they’re like athletes, they’re like stick-and-ball sports. We have an athletic trainer. We make them better, better, better and I think that’s important. And last, they have to be commercially savvy because our sponsors are so important and they expect people that represent their brands properly, so there are a number of things that we look at when we pick that next driver.”
HAVING MARK DONAHUE WITH YOU IN THOSE EARLY DAYS, HOW DID THAT HELP TRANSCEND YOUR ORGANIZATION? “I think they called it the unfair advantage. Mark was a guy that always had some ideas or a way out and we used to be able to execute those and that really gave us an edge. Today, there are a lot of people with the unfair advantage just go to a NASCAR race.”
DO YOU STILL SEE SOME UNFINISHED BUSINESS IN FORMULA ONE? “Formula One is a special series today and it always has been. It’s the Indianapolis of every country. Unfortunately, unless you’re based in Europe and have a commitment in that sport, I don’t think you can compete on a day-to-day basis. I think Gene Haas has set up a completely separate team. He’s committed financially to make it happen and I think at this point it’s pretty much passed us. We won a race in Formula One in Austria with (John) Watson, so I’d say we did get to the front, but at this point I’d say we’re gonna focus on the main efforts that we have today and that’s IndyCar, NASCAR and certainly XFINITY and our Australian pursuit that we have today to try to be the best there.”
WHAT’S IT LIKE TO SEE AN INDY 500-WINNING CAR ON DISPLAY AT THE NASCAR HALL OF FAME? “I really take my hat off to the Hall of Fame and certainly Winston Kelley and NASCAR to allow us to celebrate our 50th Anniversary here. It’s different, but I think we’re breaking glass today in many different areas and I think the opportunity for people to see a Sebring winner, to see the ’72 Indy winner and some of the cars that we have, the car that I drove so many years ago, is pretty special. So, to me, it’s something different and we’re honored to be able to have our celebration here this evening and also to have our vehicles here on display for the next couple of months.”
WILL WE SEE A ROUND OF V8 SUPERCARS HERE IN THE U.S.? “That I can’t tell you. I think that’s up to V8 Supercars. I’m only a competitor, I’m not part of the sanctioning body.”
WHAT DID YOU THINK OF HOW JOEY HANDLED THE END OF LAST SEASON? “Joey had a great season in 2014 and winning three of the Sprint Cup races in the Chase, and then our activity and tragedy we had there at Martinsville is one of the most disappointing times I’ve had in racing, but Joey is a big boy and he stepped up. I said, ‘Let’s move on here.’ There’s nothing we could do. We couldn’t replay it. If we did, we might have done something else, but, unfortunately in sports once you strike out you can’t get back up to the plate. But he’s a mature young guy. He’s got a great future moving forward with us and of course his own interests in the sport. His commitment, his wife, his foundation all of these things make him special and I think that’s why you saw him deal with this disappointment we had at Martinsville.”
HOW DOES TEAM PENSKE RECRUIT OVER-THE-WALL GUYS AND TRAIN THEM? “We go to the colleges and look for athletes that are graduating or sometimes athletes that maybe have not made it into the upper levels of the sport. Then we have an athletic director, we have a strength coach. We have an athletic department I think would be on par with most colleges, and we have people who work on other teams at lower levels in order to get their on-the-field experience, and we bring them up into our pit crews. I think we’ve done a pretty good job this past year. I think the 22 and 2, their teams were much better. We got to what we call the elite level and were as good as anybody on pit road in most of the races, but that takes time and you can’t do it overnight. You just have to build these teams.”
DO YOU STILL HAVE A GOAL TO GROW THE TEAM BEYOND TWO SPRINT CUP ENTRIES? “I think the goal, of course, now we have a technical relationship with the 21, so we’re integrated there quite deeply with some key people and working with Ryan Blaney, so hopefully at some point can we take those folks with that experience and run a third car in the Sprint Cup Series, but we have to look at that for the future. Right now, I think our plate is full.”
HOW WOULD THIS CHARTER AGREEMENT HANDICAP A TEAM’S EXPANSION GOING FORWARD? “Depending on what the outcome of that is I think we’ll have to look at it, but it would still allow us to race if we wanted to and at some point if we needed to own a charter we could go out and buy a charter when they became available.”
WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON BRUTON SMITH WITH HIM BEING INDUCTED INTO THE NASCAR HALL OF FAME THIS YEAR? “Bruton Smith is a special guy and someone who has brought so much to NASCAR. When you think about the Charlotte Motor Speedway and Bristol, and tracks like New Hampshire and Sonoma and Atlanta, he’s been the best. There’s no question. He set the bar. I think his relationship with the France family has grown over the last 10 years to where they’ve joined together to make this sport better, but I know him on the other side of his life and that’s in the auto business. Bruton has been a great competitor, a great Ford dealer and, to me, is a guy I like to know. I remember when we were trying to buy the Atlanta speedway, Bruton was in one room and I was in another and, guess what, Mike Helton was running the track at that point. I put a bid out and Bruton put a bid out and I said, ‘Bruton, it’s yours,’ and I moved on. At this point, I’m just thrilled to see him get that honor. It’s well-deserved to see someone who has put so much into this sport to have the opportunity to join the Hall of Fame.”
DID YOU EVER CONSIDER HOW LONG YOUR RECORD AT INDY MIGHT STAND WITH 16 WINS? “Having 16 wins at the Indy 500 is pretty special and it takes a lot of work and a lot of people and a lot of execution to get there. We’re not stopping at 16. I hope that we can make it 17, 18, 19 and 20 here, but we’re gonna take it one year at a time and the 100th running of the race this year is gonna be very important to us to try to win that one. We’ve got four great drivers and we’re going back with the same team.”
WHEN YOU SHOWED UP THERE IN 1969 YOU CHANGED THE CULTURE OF WHAT THE GARAGE AREA WAS LIKE. IN LOOKING AT HOW TEAMS BACK THEN OPERATED AND SEE HOW THEY ALL NOW OPERATE THE PENSKE WAY, HOW IMPORTANT IS THAT TO YOU TO SEE HOW YOU CHANGED THE CULTURE? “We went to Indy and I remember they called us the crew-cut guys with the polished wheels, but we came with the air jacks and brought a lot of innovation. Quite honestly, the competition has gotten better and better. In fact, it was so good in 1995 that we didn’t make the race. I remember in ’94 we led every lap but two, so, to me, evolution is where we are. It’s in sports. It’s in life. It’s certainly in technology and the speedway just gets better and better and tougher and tougher to win, and we’re just glad to be part of the history.”
I BELIEVE YOU WERE OFFERED A RIDE IN 1964 AND YOU TURNED IT DOWN. WHY? “I had a chance to go with Clint Brawner and Jim McGee to take a test, but I had a job at Alcoa and I couldn’t get the time off. At that point, they probably got a better guy when they got Mario Andretti.”
WHERE DID THE STARCHED SHIRTS COME FROM? “We just had white shirts and when we sent them to the cleaners they’d come back with starch in them. I didn’t know that we were so special on starched shirts. I guess, again, it’s my military training.”
IS IT FAIR FOR YOU TO PICK OUT YOUR FAVORITE MEMORY IN 50 YEARS? “There are so many times that you probably cried and you cried because you were happy and cried because you were not happy. Probably I’ll just talk about a disappointment would be the most important thing and that’s when we didn’t make the 1995 Indy 500 and Al Unser and Emerson Fittipaldi and I walked side-by-side back to that garage area having missed the race after dominating it in 1994. But so many other victories we’ve had that it’s hard to say because each one of them was special.”
ANYTHING ELSE ON YOUR LIST YOU’D LIKE TO CHECK OFF? “We’d like to be able to win at Le Mans if we can. We’ve raced there, but have never had the success that we wanted. Maybe at some point here we could put something together, but we’ve got a full plate right now and I think with the NASCAR Series and what takes place in ’16 and IndyCar with four cars and what we’re trying to do out in Australia, we’ve got a real full plate. We’ve got great people. I’ve spent the last couple of days looking at our budgets and looking at the people and the great thing is the depth that we have with the drivers like with Blaney coming up, and certainly the youngsters – you put Brad and Joey together and we’ve got some real runway for those two guys. On the IndyCar side, we’ve got Helio and Juan and then we have the young guys, so it’s interesting when you put all of that together. We’ve got some real opportunity.”
SO AN F1 RETURN IS NOT ON THE PLATE? “I don’t think so. No.”
YOU HAVE TO FEEL LIKE THE INDY 500 WINNER FOR THIS SEASON IS GOING TO BE ONE OF YOUR FOUR GUYS. “We need to execute like we did last year. We finished first and second and you can’t do much better than that. I think Pagenaud learned a lot year. I dialed Helio out of that race as good as he was in 2014, so the same cars. The aero package is all pretty well sorted out now. We won’t have all the confusion we had there right before qualifying and I think that’s gonna give us a chance to be real ready. We’ve got our cars. Right now, we’re working on our Indy 500 cars.”
WHAT DO YOU LIKE ABOUT RACING? “Racing has given me the opportunity to compete on a worldwide stage. It shows execution. It shows that we can handle adversity. We have to communicate and there’s no question the partnerships that I’ve been able to generate with the OEM’s for my business have been amazing because without racing I would have never had the connection in the automobile business and that’s really the heart of our company.”
DO YOU STILL GET THE SAME THRILL ON RACE DAY? “I get the same thrill on every race day for sure because we’re there for one reason and that’s to win.”
CAN YOU TALK ABOUT YOUR ALLIANCE WITH THE WOOD BROTHERS AND WHAT THAT MEANS TO THE SPORT? “The Wood Brothers have been friends of mine back for so many years. That 21 car with David Pearson was the top of the game and we raced together, raced against each other, and to have an opportunity to be able to partner with them and a young Ryan Blaney, and we can work with them with Jeremy Bullins and some of our key people is pretty special because they set the standard. You look at their cars. You look at their pit crews and the execution and the championships they’ve won, so, to me, it’s a perfect partnership with them. We know them. We trust them. They’re high integrity people and we’re looking forward to 2016.”
WHY DID YOU PULL AWAY FROM NASCAR THE FIRST TIME? “I don’t know that I pulled away. That’s when we were with Rusty early on. We ran that one race, I think it was in ’81, and our plate was full. We were doing IROC. We were doing Can-Am. We were doing IndyCar racing and some sports car stuff. To me, I think it was at that point we thought we had too much on our plate and the costs were escalating. If we didn’t have the sponsorship, we couldn’t keep up. But then as we were able to settle down and have more success we put our marketing department together. We were able to have the opportunity to access some of the sponsorships with some of the key people that wanted to be teamed with our company.”
WHEN YOU HAVE TO PERSONALLY LEAVE THIS SPORT IN MAYBE 25-30 YEARS (LAUGHTER). ARE YOU CONFIDENT THE TEAM CAN CONTINUE ON? “I don’t know when I’m gonna leave the sport. It will probably be very abrupt when I do, but, anyhow, I’m counting on this legacy will continue on. My sons and our family love this sport. It’s the backbone, a common thread through the company, so there’s no reason not to be involved. I think if we can sustain the sponsorship and the key people stay with us and will continue to help us, we can go on forever and I don’t see any reason we can’t do that.”
HOW IMPORTANT WAS TIM CINDRIC WHEN YOU HIRED HIM? “Leadership is very important in all aspects of sports, whether it’s the coach, whether it’s the driver, the quarterback. Tim came on board and I had a lot of confidence in him as an individual. He understood it. He had been on a race team. He knew how to win. He knew how it was to lose and I think the fact that we partnered and I had full trust and gave him the opportunity to make the changes and supported those. We had some tough days, but, on the other hand, I think he’s been a real asset to me personally and to the family and to the company. I think he’s got a lot of respect in the garage area, both in NASCAR and also in IndyCar and I think that’s what it takes long-term.”
WHY DIVERSITY IN ALL THESE DIFFERENT SERIES AND NOT JUST CONCENTRATE ON ONE? “Indy was where I got my feet wet, but I was a sports car racer and liked long distance racing, so I never gave that up. But I think that race with Rusty back in Atlanta in NASCAR was pretty key and the opportunity then to come back and once you’re in NASCAR and it bites you, you can’t let it go and I think it takes the driver, it takes that team, and I think he brought something – his own personal commitment. He’d work on the cars. He’d drive the truck if he had to, and once you’re in how do you get out?”
CAN YOU COMMENT ON BRUTON SMITH GOING INTO THE HALL OF FAME? “Bruton is an icon in the sport, certainly from the point of what he’s accomplished and what he’s brought to NASCAR and the speedways themselves is outstanding. He was always on the leading edge at his tracks – more seats, more pomp and ceremony at one of Bruton’s tracks. I think we all followed that. I remember when he was buying the Atlanta track. I was negotiating in the other room and Mike Helton was running the track at that point and he put a number on the board that was so above mine that I said, ‘It’s yours,’ and I moved on. I know when I’m negotiating with him he always won, but on the other hand his tracks and what he’s done for this sport is amazing and I think his non-track activity – his car business is outstanding. His son Scott is running that. Marcus, it’s great the way he’s been able to take his family and put them into the different pieces of the business and be so successful, but at 88 I’m really proud to call him my friend. He’s a business associate and one that I owe a lot to from the standpoint of what he’s been able to do to help build NASCAR.”
WHAT CHANGES DO YOU LIKE IN NASCAR OVER THE LAST DECADE? “I learned a long time ago that I don’t really comment on NASCAR changes. Bill France told me one time that if you don’t like it, you don’t have to come and race and I guess that’s probably what the front office would say the same thing now. I think there’s a lot of positive things going on. People are trying things different. Look at the Chase and what that has been able to build, a very exciting, high-pressure, high-tension business here at the end of each year with these 10 races. I think some of the things they’re looking at in the Truck Series and they’re pretty smart. They’re gonna try it in one of the other series and if it works, they can maybe integrate that into XFINITY and maybe Cup. I’ve got a lot of time for NASCAR. Some of the times I might not like what comes out when it happens to our team, but, on the other hand, I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t like it.”
WHAT ADVICE DO YOU HAVE FOR ALL THE YOUNG DRIVERS COMING IN? “I think learn as much as you can about the cars and integrate yourself in the team every single day.”
WHAT’S YOUR TAKE ON THE CHARTER SYSTEM? “They’re calling it a charter system. All I know is the RTA, the car owners are sitting down with NASCAR to try to work out a long-term, viable situation where we can be in partnership for the rest of many of our lives. I think by doing this it will make the sport stronger. I can say this, there has been a lot of progress. I’m not personally involved in any of the negotiations. Rob Kauffman and some of the other people have been delegated to do that, but they’re working side-by-side and hopefully we’ll have something and it will be very important to everyone involved in this sport in the near future.”
IS THIS YEAR AT INDY GOING TO BE BIGGER BECAUSE IT’S THE 100TH RUNNING OF THE 500? “Every year we go to Indy it’s a big challenge. I don’t know whether it’s the 99th or the 100th or the 101st I can tell you we’re gonna go there like it’s our first.”
BUT WOULDN’T IT BE MORE SPECIAL TO WIN IT? “Absolutely. To me, if I could win two in a row, we did that once before in the early 2000s. It would be special, but to win the 100th running of the race would be amazing. We won the 50th race in NASCAR at Daytona, so pretty special.”
HOW DID YOU IDENTIFY JOEY AS A GUY YOU WANTED TO DRIVE FOR YOU? “We watched him at Joe Gibbs and he won a lot of races racing Kyle in similar equipment. He got into the Cup side and won a couple races and as we looked at someone we might be able to bring along with the team we needed to know who was available. At that point, Gibbs didn’t have a full Cup ride for him, so in fact I talked to Joe and talked to J.D. about it. They said, ‘Give me a week or so.’ So we waited a week to find out whether they had a slot for him. When they didn’t, he was the perfect pick. Brad was a big part of that, too, because he was friendly with Joey and I wanted to be sure that when we brought another driver on the team that Brad had a chance to weigh in on it. He certainly voted in the right box. ‘Let’s get this guy, if we can.’”
DID YOU FEEL THE NEED TO ADDRESS THE SITUATION WITH JOEY AND KENSETH OVER THE OFF-SEASON? “No, that’s water over the dam. It’s like in business, you have a bad quarter or a bad year you just move on, you have to get better. I think Joey handled it like a professional. We tried to do the same as a team. For us to get into a fight or a word fight about what we thought was right or wrong. There was a lot of noise about it, but I think our best position was to be, ‘Let’s think about the next race and go on to 2016.’ Joey won more races than any other driver in the last two years. He’s a quality guy individually and personally, and I think you’re gonna see a lot more from him, and certainly teaming up with Brad we’re gonna have a strong two-car team this year.”
WHAT KEEPS DRIVING YOU TO DO THIS? “I just like the integration with people, to be part of the team. It’s something every weekend when you can go and you put it on the line every weekend. As I say, it’s your quarterly earnings every Sunday and, to me, that makes a difference. We certainly want to be successful, but I like the tension. I like the ability to have the interaction with our people, to show the execution, and another things that’s very important that has helped up build our brand and we continue to build our brand in a very special way.”
YOU ARE A FORWARD THINKER. DID YOU HAVE TO BE PRODDED TO HAVE THIS CELEBRATION? “I’m not big on big parties. Tonight is gonna be pretty special when you think about what Jonathan Gibson and Walt and Bud Denker and certainly Tim have put together to have over 40 of our drivers here representing 340 wins and our 15 Indy 500s out of the 16, and many of the key sponsors. What it does you just step back and say, ‘Wow.’ Some of the videos we’ll see are pretty rewarding. It brings tears to your eyes at many times when you think about the drivers and the successes we’ve had and the failures. Someone asked me, ‘What’s the most important moment?’ I think one of the biggest wasn’t a win, it was a loss – when we didn’t make the race at the Indy 500 in ’95 and we walked back to that garage area with Emerson and Al and didn’t make it. We’d led every lap but two the year before, so we’ve been up and we’ve been down and I think you learn that in racing.”
WHAT’S IT GOING TO TAKE WITH THE RTA TO GET THAT DEAL DONE? “I think from my understanding, and I’m not in the negotiating part of this. I think Brian France has been up front with his team and certainly Rob Kauffman has from the car owners’ perspective, and I like the progress they’re making. It’s definitely they’re thinking about all the different aspects and, most importantly, thinking about the fans, the drivers, the car owners, the press. This isn’t just something that’s just good for one part of the organization and I think you’re gonna see something that will make our sport better.”
HOW DID THE PENSKE WAY EVOLVE? “I don’t know. Maybe it’s because I went to military school. I had to start at the back of the platoon before I got up front. Once I got up there, I didn’t want to go to the back.”
-- Press release courtesy of Ford Performance
