Roger Penske

Lore & Background

Penske was born in Shaker Heights, Ohio, in 1937 into a devout Episcopalian family. He was heavily involved with his church as a boy, singing in the church choir and serving in the ministry as an acolyte. His father Jay was a successful corporate executive for a metal fabrication company who encouraged his son to become an entrepreneur. As a teenager he bought older cars, repaired them, and sold them at a profit from his family's home outside Cleveland, Ohio. After graduating from Shaker Heights High School in 1955, Penske matriculated at Lehigh University, where he was a member of the Phi Gamma Delta fraternity, and he graduated in 1959. Penske's first racing venture was in hillclimbing, and then he drove in road course racing at the Vineland Raceway in Vineland, New Jersey, as a member of the Philadelphia Region of the Sports Car Club of America (SCCA) in Porsches. Penske made his first professional racing start at the now-abandoned Marlboro Motor Raceway in Upper Marlboro, Maryland. Sports Illustrated named Penske SCCA Driver of the Year in 1961. He competed in two Formula One Grands Prix and won a NASCAR Pacific Coast Late Model race at Riverside in 1963. He never ran the Indianapolis 500; however, he was offered a rookie test at Indianapolis with the Dean Van Lines team. Penske continued racing until 1965, when he retired as a driver, to concentrate on his first Chevrolet dealership in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. During college, Penske worked at Alcoa as an intern, and in 1959 joined them as a sales engineer after graduating, while also pursuing a career in racecar driving where he met people involved in Chevrolet. In 1963, he left Alcoa to become a manager of a Chevrolet dealership in Philadelphia, which he bought a year later with a loan from his father. He shifted his focus away from race-car driving to the dealership after the purchase. In 1969, Penske founded Penske Truck Leasing in Reading, Pennsylvania by purchasing a truck rental and leasing business with three locations serving eastern Pennsylvania. Penske Racing debuted in 1966 at the 24 Hours of Daytona. He developed one of the most successful teams in the IndyCar Series and NASCAR racing. He is the most successful team owner at the Indianapolis 500 with 20 victories. He is known by his nickname of "The Captain". Penske also served as a race strategist for his IndyCar team, most recently for

In Their Own Story

Penske sat in the back of his own shop, a grease-stained rag over his shoulder, watching his crew run final checks on the PC1. He didn't shout. He didn't pace. He walked the length of the car twice, ran a hand along the sidepod, and said, "It's ready." The crew nodded. They had built it with him, bolt by bolt, over the previous two years. When the green flag dropped that afternoon and the field fanned out into the first turn, Penske was not the fastest car on the track. But his car was the most *his* car on the track, and by the fourteenth lap he had found the rhythm that the rest of the field could not match. When he crossed the line, the silence in his pit box lasted only a heartbeat before the crew erupted. He wiped his hands on his coveralls, nodded to each of them in turn, and said, "Good work." Then he walked back to the shop and started sketching the next car.

Reader's Guide

Roger Penske is a former professional racecar driver who retired from driving in 1965. He never built his own race cars from the ground up; his first team car debuted in 1966, after his driving retirement. He did not design or fabricate his own chassis. The source does not mention the PC1 chassis or any specific aerodynamic benchmark. Penske had significant racing pedigree before building his team: he was SCCA Driver of the Year in 1961, competed in two Formula One Grands Prix, and won a NASCAR Pacific Coast Late Model race. He is not a self-taught engineer or mechanic; he studied at Lehigh University and worked as a sales engineer at Alcoa.

Did You Know?

• Penske never ran the Indianapolis 500 as a driver, though he was offered a rookie test with the Dean Van Lines team.
• He received a kidney transplant from his son Greg in 2017.
• Penske's first professional racing start was at the now-abandoned Marlboro Motor Raceway in Upper Marlboro, Maryland.
• He was named SCCA Driver of the Year by Sports Illustrated in 1961.