Roger Penske

Roger Penske is the second recipient of the Autosport Gold Medal, which recognizes a lifetime of service to the motorsport industry and a lasting legacy.

To tell the story of Penske’s achievements and assess his legacy would fill a lengthy book. But it speaks volumes for the man that in 2022, at the age of 85, he was still breaking records, becoming the first team owner to win the INDYCAR and NASCAR championships in the same season.

His team has won 17 INDYCAR championships, 18 Indianapolis 500s, and a total of 229 Indy car victories. He has owned the INDYCAR series and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway since 2020 and is investing to maintain its mythical status long into the future.

Next year he takes on the challenge of winning the 100th Le Mans 24 Hours with Porsche. The next win is always the most important for Penske and that is what has driven him throughout his more than 60-year career in motorsport.

He started in the late 1950s as a driver, won the SCCA Driver of the Year award in 1961, entered two Grands Prix and struck up a lifelong friendship with Sir Jackie Stewart. Then as his business career flourished, he moved moved into team ownership in 1965 and has dovetailed his business and racing life ever since.

Penske has won in pretty much every category he has entered. The team’s original talisman, Mark Donohue, not only scored Penske’s first Indy 500 win but also dominated Trans-Am and Can-Am. John Watson helped ensure Penske’s brief period in Formula 1 in the 1970s yielded glory, while there have also been great sportscar successes – the Daytona 24 Hours in 1969, an overall Sebring 12 Hours triumph with the Porsche RS Spyder, and most recently IMSA championships with Acura. He has also dominated in Australian Supercars.

Penske – “The Captain”, as he’s nicknamed – is a competitor who keeps his team sharp and who still recognizes prodigious potential.

Rick Mears won four Indy 500s and three Indy car titles for Penske as a driver and remains on the team staff 30 years after his retirement. He is in awe of his boss.

“Apart from talking about drivers and racing, I usually stay quiet and just listen to Roger,” he says. “The bigger stuff about the sport itself, I’ll have opinions, but whatever I think of, he’s already thought of… usually months or years before it ever crossed my mind! That’s how far ahead of the curve he always is, and I’m sure it’s the same in his businesses. That’s why Roger is still so successful.”

Penske Team President Tim Cindric, who joined the squad in 1999, says the scale of his boss’s ambition struck him after they won the 2001 Indy 500 with Helio Castroneves’.