The Lowe Down From Roger Penske LMS Media Tour.

Thursday, Jan. 27, 2005
Lowe's Motor Speedway Media Tour
PENSKE RACING SOUTH STOP
                

ROGER PENSKE (Founder and Chairman Penske Corporation)

 

NOTE: Penske, who will turn 68 on Feb. 20, greeted guests of the Lowe's
Motor Speedway Media Tour on Wednesday night at the new Penske Racing
South facility in Mooresville, N.C. Penske talks about the upcoming
NASCAR NEXTEL Cup season and his three drivers - Rusty Wallace (No. 2
Miller Lite Dodge Charger), Ryan Newman (No. 12 ALLTEL Dodge Charger)
and Travis Kvapil (No. 77 Kodak/Jasper Dodge Charger).

 

COMMENT ON DRIVER DEVELOPMENT "As we move into the next decade we're
looking at some younger drivers. We obviously can take people out of the
open wheel series if necessary, but at this particular time, Ryan
(Newman) is a pupil out of our ABC program - ARCA, Busch and Cup. I
think we're in good shape. We haven't made a decision on who is going to
replace Rusty (Wallace) next year, so that's going to be an interesting
thing as we move through the current year. We've talked about
potentially running selective Busch races this year. We're not going to
run a full season. I don't think it's necessary. I'd rather bring
somebody up in maybe a lesser series and run some Busch and maybe some
Cup races. As we look at Travis (Kvapil) this year, it was an
opportunity to get somebody who's been on these types of tracks and then
run some races with us and then make a decision."

 

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT RACING IN MEXICO? "We're not going from a Cup
perspective. I think when you look at Canada and the United States, part
of that is how important it is to your sponsors. I think we've got to be
careful if we get too far off the main track because of the cost to the
teams and drivers. Obviously it's a road race and maybe it gets road
racing into Busch. We did that in Japan a number of years ago when they
went to Motegi. It's a development part of the series. A lot of us are
saying how many races do we have to have to have a championship?  We had
a championship being decided in the last 10 races on the Cup side, so
I'm not a fan of it and I'm also not against it. Some good sponsors are
coming out of Mexico, and I think there will be a good crowd. They're
trying to find different venues in different markets, but I'm not the
person who decides the schedules."

 

COMMENT ON RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN RUSTY AND RYAN "They've talked and
they're going forward based on they've got a job to get done. These are
grown men, and obviously this is an energy-charger sport. You take one
night when one guy thought he could win the race and got bumped by the
other one. It's just one of those things. I guess I'd rather have to
grab the back of their belt than be kicking them in the butt. They've
handled it, and we've got to move on to next year. It's professional.
I've talked to both of them, and I think they know they've got to race
hard. They might bump into each other from time to time, but it wasn't a
big deal to me. It was two guys charged up, trying to win races. At the
end of the day one didn't and something happened that kinda created
a.... It's like two of your kids. I don't want to call 'em kids, but
here are two young guys that decided they didn't agree with something,
so it's over as far as I'm concerned."

 

COMMENT ON RUMORS THAT RUSTY WANTS TO FIRE RYAN "No way. If he was going
to get rid or Ryan he would have gotten rid of other guys long before
Ryan."

 

WHAT WAS THE THOUGHT PROCESS BEHIND ENORMASS NEW SHOP? "Part of it was
our IndyCar team was all under one roof, obviously not this size. We
don't have to have the requirements we do in NASCAR, but I wanted the
ability not to have six or seven locations. I wanted to build a shop
where everybody was in the same house. In NASCAR we've kind of grown up
with the 2 shop some place and the 12 shop (somewhere else). I think in
this kind of environment we need to cross information across the teams
and not have a bunch of silos where no one really talks. At the
racetrack it's too hard to get the information because so much is going
on. Engineering can be more consistent. I think our body work, we're
building the cars so they're the same. You look at our chassis shop, our
fab shop, we have a separate we're using exclusively for our speedway
cars - an area we.think we need to do a lot better in, so I just think
it'll make us a much better team. We designed it together. Every single
room here was laid out by the specialist in that room whether it was the
paint shop, the fab or the chassis shop. I think we basically took a
building that was sitting here. It was the Panasonic building. We had
the benefit of the footprint of a big building and yet we wanted to
utilize it wisely. I think we want to build a test track on the 50 acres
outside. Those are things we want to do in the future. Being out here
(Mooresville, N.C. Industrial Park) we don't have to worry about being
in town and some of the noise restrictions they have. This gives us a
much  better benefit for the long term. For me, it's all about the
people inside, not the building."

 

COMMENT ON RUSTY'S LAST CALL "I think it's absolutely a smart move. He's
an attractive guy. He's a smart driver. He's got a great reputation.
He's one of the best I've ever had interfacing with sponsors. He's got
his son coming up, and he's got other business interests. I think he saw
Earnhardt, one if his good friends, you know this is a sport that has
some risks, and I think Rusty can have a great season. He's not at the
bottom of his game. We don't want to see him do like some other great
drivers and wait until it's almost too late and then decide to close the
door. I told him this. I said, 'you're doing it at the right time.' He
made his decision a couple of years ago, and he stayed on track. I think
it's going to be fine. I take my hat off to him. I think we're all going
to see him have one of his very best seasons. I see it in his eyes. I
would be disappointed if he's not (in The Chase). Being in that Chase is
a tough situation with the competition like it is. There are 10 or 15
other ones who should be in there also, and that makes it so exciting,
but I think Rusty has been in the top 10 for many, many years. There's
no reason he can't be in the top 10. We've got great equipment. I think
he's got a great crew chief in Larry Carter, and he certainly knows how
to drive the car. He's got RWI with (son) Stephan coming up and the
things he's doing. I told him let's not talk about what happens at the
end of the season. I think we need to focus on the 2005 Nextel Cup
season and what you're going to do. If we start thinking about other
things you're going to lose your focus."

 

WHAT WILL YOU LOOK FOR IN THE NEXT DRIVER FOR THE 2 CAR? "I've either
got to take a driver who has not had the experience that Rusty's had or
I've got to go out and get one of the best drivers out there. It's
interesting to see what goes on behind the scenes, so we'll see."

 

WHAT ARE YOU EXPECTING OF YOUR THREE TEAMS THIS YEAR? "There's no
question from the standpoint of Ryan and Rusty, both of them have the
ability and the equipment and capability to be in the final 10. That
would be minimum expectation for myself. I think Travis is a longshot. I
think he's shown us a lot. I've watched him. I was on his radio the last
couple of races. He's going to learn a lot in the first few races, but I
think we're going to see a lot of him over time. You look at the Kurt
Buschs and even Ryan, these are people no one really regarded as a
superstar. I think putting him in a good car with a good team with
consistency and reliability, I think these guys are capable of making a
big score."

 

COMMENT ON BRENDAN GAUGHAN "We didn't get the results we wanted. We had
a one-year contract and ran it out. We even ran a fourth car to get some
experience with Travis. Brendan at the end of the season had some pretty
good runs, but we had made the decision to look elsewhere and we'll see
if it was the right decision. We left on good terms. We gave him a good
car. He gave it everything he had. This is a business we're looking for
final performance."

 

WHAT DO YOU SEE RUSTY'S ROLE AS AFTER THIS SEASON? "I think the first
thing we've got to do is finish this season and see what he wants to do
as an individual. He has a lot of other interests. He's got his car
dealerships. He's got his son Stephen. He's got his own RWI there, and I
think we'll have to wait and see. Rusty will always be a part of us one
way or the other, so that's a business decision he'll make at the end of
the season."

 

HOW OFTEN WERE YOU AT THE NEW SHOP WHILE IT WAS BEING BUILT? "I was down
here probably every week or week and a half. We spent a lot of time on
this. This is one of the kind of projects you've got to be here. You've
got to walk it, and we made changes every week. You sit here tonight and
see things you might want to tweak. It's kind of like a setup on a car,
but I think the final product, we thought about the fans first and then
we thought about what we could give our technicians the environment they
want. If you look at the garage they work in it's certainly nice to be
able to come home and work in an environment. I'm going to use this with
all of our businesses to bring our employees and many of our customers
here. If you have an NFL team, you can't take them in the locker room or
dugout, but we can bring 'em here. This is maybe our dugout. It makes a
huge difference."