Comments on: The Man Behind Team Penske

By: Team penske | VanisSon

Team penske | VanisSon — Sat, 05 Mar 2011 13:09:51 +0000

[...] The Man Behind Team Penske « OilpressureBACK TO SQUARE ONE; Team Penske is quickest with Indy’s new 3.0-liter formula.(News) … find AutoWeek articles. div id="be-doc-text" Byline: CURT CAVINThe Indianapolis 500 is unofficial- ly divided into two races ea… … Roger Penske’s team is the defending champion of both parts of the event, winning the pole last year… [...]

By: Tom

Tom — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 04:06:59 +0000

My wife is a HUGE fan of Helio. Last year after Helio won the pole at Indy, she was hoping to get a message to him. Helio was giving on camera interviews and Tim Cendric was also inside the closed off media area, so she asked Mr Cendric to come over to the crowd barrier. The President of Penske Racing comes over, listens to her request, then takes a memo pad out of his back pocket and writes down the message to give to Helio later. Incredible but true.

Tim Cendric is in many ways like Rick Mears: amazingly successful yet seemingly without ego.

By: Mars

Mars — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 18:23:42 +0000

An Associate degree in engineering after High School might not be so bad for these younger kids. Thinking of one youngster, “who has permission to race-but not to drive” and honestly if that is the satndard for American openwheel racing-the associate degree might be helpful. “You Know.”
The kids should also have classes in business so they can manage their taxes, and their own perfolios, and also because they may need a backup plan sometime in the future-
Most adults want their American kids educated. (Race- car driver kids are not a protected class, BTW. “The racing budget” should include a class or 2 in college business and basic engineering, during the :”silly-season.” 1 semester.
Randy Bernard might agree that 15 year old racers should not skip school to race cars, at least.
Roger Penske is definetely the captain-and he made a great choice for his engineer. He is the smart looking guy with the white hair-
(“Ask their parents”…reminds me of the e-trade babies…
Milka-What?)
Closing with that-
Milka Duno has 4 Master’s Degrees and is not the fastest driver-but she is one of the smartest woman on the league, and now Simona, who also probably speaks at least 4 languages, as the Swiss children are required to know.
New Rule for Randy:No skipping school, for racing-
In Florida, we are only allowed 10 days of absences per year! Including Sports…so if you race in Florida, you play by the Florida-Gator rules!
Off to St. Pete. where Roy is waving his Golden Spatula!
Also, my friend harry (at least 40 years old,now) raced in LeMans last year in Paris…didn’t see any young kids driving in that series-He owns an Ace hardware store in Coronado CA, and ran the first SEMA show-which my husband wrote the software for. I am not that unfamiliar with racing or a professional racecar H-8er! Kids and racing-not so much!

By: The Speedgeek

The Speedgeek — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 15:50:04 +0000

It’s true that the Hulman family and the IRL are involved with Rose-Hulman (Jeff Belskus and Tony and Mari Hulman George sit on the board of trustees, and Belskus is the Vice-Chair), but I think you’re kind of overstating the importance of a full-on engineering education for an IndyCar driver. I don’t really think that Danica or Marco or Mario Moraes or whoever would be all that well served by having to sit though differential equations, materials science, thermodynamics, technical communications, mechanics of materials, chem labs and the like. A class in vehicle dynamics might be a different matter, but those are graduate-level and above (and not available at Rose, anyway), and probably far too specific for what a racing driver needs. Plus, I think most drivers are probably aiming for careers in business after their driving days are over, so a lot of this stuff would be completely unnecessary.

Nice thought, but this suggestion is not very practical. Ask the average young racing driver and their parents if they’d rather spend $40k a year on a their racing budget or on an engineering degree that they may never use (and which the kid may not have the smarts or desire to finish anyway), and I think they’ll give you a pretty quick answer.

By: Mars

Mars — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 14:24:05 +0000

Mr. Cindric is a graduate of Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology (abbreviated RHIT), RHIT is highly regarded for its undergraduate engineering program, which is ranked as the best in the United States (of schools whose highest degree is a bachelor’s or master’s). Its campus is located in Terre Haute, Indiana. The Hulman family “obviously” has invested in education so engineering is readily available to Indy drivers. RHIT is “obviously” a fantastic opportunity for all the kids in the racing league, no excuses and some college education should be required for all professionals. Mr. Cendric is the alumni with the intellegence behind the winner! (Mrs. Hulman also has one of the very best equine centers ion the USA, she and her family deserve alot of credit for supporting education “obviously.”)

By: S

Wed, 24 Mar 2010 23:14:30 +0000

Tim Cindric is about the perfect all around team manager. Last year I was at Indy and I spotted him making his way through the crowd and said “good luck Tim” and he stopped in his tracks, looked to see who said it and even though he didn’t know who I was, he shook my hand and said thanks.

As the article said, he’s the perfect person to be between Penske and Helio and a pretty damn smart & nice guy.

By: bickelmom

bickelmom — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 22:38:47 +0000

George, I really enjoy these kinds of articles from you. I’m still learning so much about the sport and these types of articles remind me that there is much more to the sport than what you see on race day. Team member profiles/observations/histories give great prospective and backstory. Thanks!

By: Brian McKay

Brian McKay — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 20:24:36 +0000

– and unfortunate for its drivers!

By: Paul Dalbey

Paul Dalbey — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 19:19:03 +0000

George, I don’t like to pimp our site on other people’s blog so please remove this comment if you feel it is inappropriate. However, I had the pleasure of speaking with Tim as part of our Off-Season Interview Series at Planet-IRL and he was everything just as you described him. If your readers are interested in hearing more from the man himself, the audio link can be found here: http://planet-irl.com/2009/12/09/an-interview-with-tim-cindric/.

By: The Speedgeek

The Speedgeek — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 16:36:25 +0000

I think that last sentence of yours is kind of the point. Newman-Haas is falling apart in the era in which one owner passed away, another owner is getting on in years and may not be in the best of health, and the third owner (from what I’ve heard) is not necessarily getting along with or seeing eye to eye with the other leadership that’s been brought in by owner #2 (either offspring or somebody else, I’m not clear on that). Meanwhile, Penske brought Cindric in almost 10 full years ago, and while it’s not necessarily clear if Roger had his eye on Cindric taking the reins completely upon Roger’s retirement back in 2000, it’s obvious at this point that Cindric will be the person that’ll take over when Roger does step aside.

It’s about having a contingency plan for the future, for when you’re not around anymore. Roger has developed such a plan over the course of the last decade, while Paul Newman and Carl Haas apparently did not come up with such a clear plan. That’s unfortunate, both for the team and for fans of the team.