Roger Penske, the owner of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and the IndyCar racing series, climaxed his month of May on Sunday with his 20th Indy 500 victory as a team owner.
Penske is 87. While he may be the lion in winter, this month showed he isn’t ready to give up.
Penske’s racing team got caught in a cheating scandal in April, involving illegal use of so-called “push to pass” software. Driver Josef Newgarden was stripped of his win for the first 2024 IndyCar race in St. Petersburg, Florida.
Going into May, it was a difficult time for Penske.
On Sunday, however, Newgarden won this year’s Indy 500 late in the event. It was Newgarden’s second consecutive Indianapolis 500 victory. The win occurred after a four-hour weather delay.
For Penske, “the Captain” as he’s known in IndyCar, it was even bigger. It extended his record for wins at the Indy 500 as a team owner.
Penske is both a racer and a businessman. He controls various transportation businesses, including a major chain of automobile dealerships.
Once upon a time, Penske developed auto racing tracks. But he sold them off in the late 1990s. Yet, he got back into the business in 2019 when the Indianapolis Motor Speedway went on the market and he purchased it.
With IndyCar, Penske owns the series, its most important venue, and its leading team.
Conflict of interest? Maybe, maybe not. Penske’s 2019 has kept IndyCar going the past five years.
IndyCar racing faces questions in the future. Still, for one month in May, the Lion in Winter triumphed one more time.
