Buying the iconic Indianapolis Motor Speedway and open-wheel North American IndyCar racing league fulfilled a long-held dream for Roger Penske, but his first year of ownership was rather nightmarish.
Last year’s Indy 500 was moved from its traditional Memorial Day weekend to August and ran without fans in attendance because of the coronavirus pandemic.
But the giant venue won’t be empty come Sunday, May 30, when the green flag drops as restrictions have loosened, coronavirus cases have declined and COVID-19 vaccinations are widely available. About 135,000 fans — up to 40 percent of the track’s capacity — will be allowed in the stands for the 105th race per agreements with Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett and health officials in Marion County.
“That’s going to be a big day for us,” Penske, 84, told Automotive News. “I think it’s going to show the world that we can open up an outdoor facility and handle a crowd like that properly, under the guidelines that we’ve been given to have the race.”
On Jan. 5, 2020, a subsidiary of Penske Corp. became just the fourth owner of the famed 2.5-mile racetrack. The purchase from longtime owner Hulman & Co. also included the NTT IndyCar Series and video and production company IMS Productions.
Two months later, COVID-19 hit.
Expenses were trimmed. There were temporary furloughs to some of the 200 staffers. Some projects and planning for the track and IndyCar were paused. The financial hit was significant. Instead of 300,000 ticket sales for the Indy 500, there were zero.
Despite the setbacks, Penske said his long-term vision for the venue he describes as the racing capital of the world hasn’t wavered.
“We want to be sure that the guest experience is the best in the world,” he said.
While Penske called the past year’s speedway business “challenging” and “tough,” nearly $16 million was invested into improvements in 2020, and $5 million to $6 million more will be spent this year on updates.
A giant media wall was added in the Pagoda Plaza, 30 new LED screens went up around the facility, restrooms were renovated and a 5G wireless network was installed.
The significant face-lift came after a thorough review of “every nook and cranny” of the facility, said Mark Miles, CEO of Penske Entertainment Corp., the Penske unit that bought the speedway.
When Miles became associated with the speedway in 2012, he said he would have ranked its condition a 2 out of 10. After $90 million in improvements in the mid-2010s, Miles said the condition improved to a 5, and with Penske’s improvements last year, it shot up to a 9 or 9.5.
“It’s just where it ought to be,” Miles said.
Racing and the Indianapolis speedway are special to Penske. He first attended the Indy 500 at age 14 with his father. That year, in 1951, Penske was able to sit in a show car and have his picture taken.
The race ignited a passion for the sport as he took to driving. In 1961, Sports Illustrated named Penske the Sports Car Club of America’s Driver of the Year.
His time behind the wheel was short-lived, though. By the mid-1960s, when he was asked to take a driver’s test to race in the Indy 500, he had to pass because he was working as a Chevrolet dealership in Philadelphia. But he didn’t shy away from the sport.
As a race team owner, Penske entered his first car in an Indy 500 in 1969. Four years later, he won his first Indy with driver Mark Donohue. His drivers have continued to rack up history-making Indy wins.
“The record speaks for itself. We’ve won it 18 times now since our first race in ’69,” Penske said. “So we’ve had a great run there.”
The Captain, as he’s known, said racing remains his passion and is woven throughout Penske Corp. His business empire, based in Bloomfield Hills, Mich., includes some 56,000 employees and a number of transportation-related and motorsports racing companies. Part of Penske’s conglomerate is publicly traded Penske Automotive Group Inc., ranked by Automotive News as the second-largest dealership group in the U.S. based on 2020 new-vehicle sales.
In 2019, President Donald Trump awarded Penske the nation’s top civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Penske said he likes to get down to Indy at least once every 10 days and often makes it there two days a week. When he’s there, he actively participates in facilities work, business planning and strategy.
Miles, former CEO of Hulman & Co., said he and Penske talk daily about the business, which Miles said Penske is patient about financially. “He’s again looking at it over the very long term as kind of a stewardship or a legacy for his family,” Miles said.
“This is something he expects his grandchildren to be part of,” Miles added. “And he understands ownership of these assets comes with almost a public responsibility for preserving and growing it.”
During the past several months, the premier track that dates to 1909 has had another purpose — helping to vaccinate residents against COVID-19.
“We feel so important and so embedded in the community and the state that we opened up the track for mass vaccinations and will have done over 100,000 Hoosiers at the track” as of late April, Penske said.
It was quite a memorable experience for those residents, who got to drive through the tunnel, around the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum and through the Formula One garage to get their vaccine, before driving down pit lane and the track.
The speedway and Penske’s IndyCar management team were able to hold some events last year despite the pandemic, including the rescheduled Indy 500 — a tradition the Penske team was proud to keep going. IndyCar held 14 races last year and has 17 scheduled for 2021, Miles said.
Penske said he wants to attract more “world-class events” to the speedway. Some changes so far include moving the NASCAR Brickyard 400 to the speedway’s road course and creating an IndyCar-NASCAR doubleheader weekend that’s slated for August.
Some automakers are using the track for commercials and customer deliveries and drives.
“Chevrolet uses it for their dealer base. Ferrari has Ferrari Challenge. BMW uses it,” Penske said. “We have a number of OEMs that are activating now which has been very, very important to us from a revenue standpoint, but also it’s a special place to be able to execute” events.
While it’s great to have a strong commercial return on the speedway business, he said, it’s more important to be known for having “an iconic track” that maintains the history of people such as Tony Hulman and Eddie Rickenbacker.
“The opportunities that the Hulman company family gave me, to our family, to buy the track was once in a lifetime,” Penske said.