NASCAR CUP SERIES: DAYTONA 500

February 20, 2022

Roger Penske

Press Conference

An Interview with:

THE MODERATOR: We're going to get started with our Daytona 500 championship press conferences here. We are joined by our Daytona 500 winning team owner, Roger Penske. This is his third Daytona 500 win for Team Penske on his birthday, so happy birthday.

ROGER PENSKE: Thank you.

THE MODERATOR: Obviously the driver was Austin Cindric in the No. 2 Discount Tire Ford. We will go straight to questions for Roger.

Q. The Fords had speed all week in the draft, particularly your Fords. That last restart with Austin and Ryan on the front row, what was your hope there, and what did you see play out there over the last two laps?

ROGER PENSKE: Well, I think it was really the strategy that was called by Jeremy, putting Austin up on top and then him coming down over ahead of Ryan. We had talked all for weeks after last year when we were one-two and ended up in the fence, I guess you'd have to say, and they played ball, and Austin won.

But the cars were good. I think for Ford, for us and the whole Ford group, worked really well together. We've worked hard as teams to try to develop a plan, and I think it paid off.

If you looked at Austin this week and the way he ran, he didn't make a mistake today. He was up second, third, almost the entire race, and then at the end to be able to pull it off, which shows you the quality of kid he is and also the experience that he already has as a young man. We're very excited about the win.

Q. What is it about Austin that you liked? I know it can be tricky because he's the other boss's son, so what is it that you believed in him?

ROGER PENSKE: Well, I go back when he was playing with his toys in his bedroom in Redding, so I've seen him grow up as a young man. He's been focused, he's been a student of the game, is a smart young man.

I think he works with the team well. He's in the shop all the time. And he's a team player, and he understands his position.

Probably one of the tougher meetings I had with him was when we decided not to put him into Cup, had him run another year and then he won the championship, and he took it like a man, and you could see that, as far as I was concerned. He said, You make the call. I'm going to make it happen. That's exactly what he did.

He's a mature man at his age, and there's no question you could see his driving ability today.

Q. Did you anticipate not missing a beat with a driver change in the 2?

ROGER PENSKE: Well, there's lots of things to think about when you've got Blaney and you've got Joey, and Brad had made the decision that he wanted to take ownership and go over to Roush Fenway, which was great. You could see how well they did this weekend. Big shot in the arm for him.

We've got to build these people. You bring them in the funnel, and they've got to come up, and all of a sudden you get the results.

The team we have, the longevity. We have very little turnover on the team, and those guys come back. And that was a crew that worked for Brad last year, in many cases, and I think with him being able to take those tools, as a young man, made a huge difference.

I'm thrilled. I mean, it's hard to believe, but I knew something could happen with the green-white-checkered. I said, We've got a chance here, because you never know. He didn't make a mistake.

Q. Have you ever won a race on your birthday?

ROGER PENSKE: I don't know. I got a big cake, though, didn't I?

Q. Also, you've seen Austin grow up, I believe when Helio won the Indy 500 in 2001, one- or two-year-old Austin nearly knocked over the Borg-Warner Trophy the next day at the Yard of Bricks. Is he almost kind of part of the family to you because you've pretty much watched this kid grow up?

ROGER PENSKE: Well, I think both his son and his brother, Tim's son and brother, really have done a great job. They've gone their own individual ways, but he's been part of the family. He moved to North Carolina when we put the teams together. Tim was a big part of that, and he gets a lot of credit as really the team manager, certainly with Mike Nelson and Travis Geisler and all the crew chiefs.

I think what's happened this year with the new car, our guys are working more together now than they ever had. It's not three different teams, it's one team, and they work together, the engineering people do. We made some changes there with Jonathan Hassler, and all those things have paid off.

Then at the end you need someone to execute, and certainly he did.

Q. Also his grandfather was Jim Trueman, who you competed against as a team owner at the Indy 500. How special that is to the whole Trueman family?

ROGER PENSKE: Well, Jim was a great guy. And I remember when they won the 500 with Bobby Rahal. And he was very sick at that point, and I went over to tell him, and I said, Congratulations. And what did he say? Now I can put Jim Trueman 500 on his airplane. That's the last time I talked to him, think about that.

So we go way back, and I'm sure he's looking down today and thinking, wow, what a wonderful day and what a great thing for my grandson.

Q. Blaney said that he wasn't going to make a move unless he was 100 percent sure either him or Austin would win. Did you have any doubt after what happened last year and the talks that you said you had with the guys that that would be the way it would play out?

ROGER PENSKE: We talked about that a lot, as you would expect we did after the race last year. And I said, look, the best man wins at the end. I think we've got to work together.

I think it was not just us, it was the entire Ford camp. If you looked at it all day long, people stayed in line. I think they did the job.

And then at the end, I felt that with two cars up front and the speed we'd had all during the race, and obviously interesting we had six Fords up there and one Toyota, and Bubba certainly was hungry to win, too.

So we had to execute, and that's what we did.

Q. I know Austin won the Xfinity title, but a couple years before that it was kind of a rough start for him in NASCAR. Was there a time where you thought, maybe he just doesn't have it for Cup?

ROGER PENSKE: Well, no, I think that he started really in these types of cars. He was a sports car racer, I guess, open wheel racer, and then to be able to transition into NASCAR and into stock cars, look, you're going to have a bumpy ride, and you can have some luck, and on the other hand you've seen the quality of his road racing.

He comes into this series with a high road racing capability, and I think that -- we don't have people buy a ride at Penske, we have the drivers that we want to drive for us, and I think that he was someone that we could build on.

I knew him as a person, not just because it was his dad's -- Tim's son. Quite honestly, if he didn't get the job done, we might have changed it, but he came along I think as well as he could under the circumstances initially.

But I think he's proven -- this is going into the third year now. He's the top of his game.

Q. What is going through your mind when the field is coming through Turn 4 for the last time, and you have two of your cars and you have your former driver in Keselowski right there close together? What were the thoughts on your mind as that situation was playing out in the final turn?

ROGER PENSKE: I wish they'd move the finish line further towards Turn 4. That was the first thing I was thinking. And you really couldn't tell. Just like all these things here, until the 23 -- what was it, half a fender really. Another lap it might have been a different story.

I felt good about it because I knew the 2 would work together, and I knew Blaney was going to try to make it happen for Austin. If Austin slipped up, he would be there. But you never know.

I think it's why people come here. That's why we filled the house today. But it's the type of racing we have, and you could see they played ball together for most of the race. There wasn't many elbows out there, but at the end there's no question guys wanted that victory.

Q. What was your reaction to some of your teams' wheels being confiscated by NASCAR this week, and how were you expecting that situation to play out?

ROGER PENSKE: Well, I think that anybody who was at the race today, you talk to most of the teams, they all had trouble with wheels, didn't they. It wasn't something that was unique.

And I think that we had contacted NASCAR a week before and said that the wheels we were getting were not all the same, and we felt we needed to modify the holes where the drive pins go.

We didn't really get any feedback, and at that point we went ahead and opened the holes up.

In fact, when you look at it, they're much bigger than they would have been -- smaller, excuse me, than we had either on INDYCAR or on sports car.

I just think there was so much going on and trying to get the communication back and forth -- we certainly talked about it with them. This wasn't something we did under the covers trying to beat anybody. It was right there.

So they took all our wheels, and we ran today with wheels that we had up at the shop, came down, they were certainly like everybody else's, I think.

Q. You touched on this earlier, but Austin certainly didn't come into NASCAR on a typical track of many drivers with his prior sports car experience. I just wondered how would you rate his quick adaption to the NASCAR style of racing?

ROGER PENSKE: Well, I think his record speaks for itself. He really had almost two Xfinity wins in the two years where he really got going full time, and then to come here and have this type of victory was amazing.

I think he's a star coming up. I think he's a great team player. And from a Discount Tire perspective and all of our sponsors, I think he'll represent us as a team the way we need to be so we can continue to fund his car.

Look, that's part of it. You follow me? You've got to be a driver, you've got to understand the car technically, you've got to be a team player, and you also have to work with your sponsors. And I think all of those buttons he touches very well.

Q. Just walking around the grid today even before the race, it seemed like, talking to people, they seemed very excited about where NASCAR is going right now, just as a sport collectively, with the sellout, coming off the Clash, now you've got the top 4 finishers were all under 30 years old. To say NASCAR is on an upswing, do you think that's an accurate assessment? How do you feel about the relevance of NASCAR right now in the motorsports world?

ROGER PENSKE: That's a lot of questions. I think if you ask the question how I think NASCAR is right today and what we see, I think we're on a great trajectory. All of the new fans that we had at the Coliseum and certainly selling this place out and sponsorships and suites, I think it's terrific.

With the new crop of drivers, and we have some drivers that are retiring, I think it's leaving an opening for these young kids. When you look at the 5 car, Larson and what he's done come in, just bang, when he got into the car, I think you're going to see a lot of that.

With the car being somewhat of a leveler, because everyone has got the same hammer, then it's up to strategy, execution and the driver.

Q. You are a great judge of talent. You must have known that this was going to happen probably this year. Did you think it would happen now, or did you figure by mid-season this kid is going to be winning?

ROGER PENSKE: Well, let me tell you this. We're always positive. The glass is not half empty, it's half full, and I think what happened today was an execution from the time we got our first piece for the New Gen car. I think Roush Yates did a terrific job on the engine power, as usual, and our team executed on pit road, and Austin did the rest.

That's what happens. People win races that you don't expect, but on the other hand, when you looked at the speed we had this week, I think one of our cars you could say should have been a favorite to be one of the guys in the winner's circle, and it turns out to be Austin Cindric. That's why I'm here.

Q. Obviously your cars ran good all week, but what's your general perspective on how this new car performed today versus the previous car?

ROGER PENSKE: Well, I can tell you one thing; that the cost to put this car together is significantly less than if we had a regular car that we ran last year.

I think we could see that at the Clash, guys getting into each other with the fiberglass body. We had that on Xfinity cars for a number of years.

And I think that's paying off. I think that the cars that we have today and the new rules are terrific, and we'll see when we get back with Joey's car what it's going to take.

The 21 car that Harrison ran, we just pulled the front end off, bolted another one on. That's all we had to do, and the car was back in the scanner 100 percent.

I think NASCAR has gone a long way. Lots of discussion, lots of angst, but I'd take my hat off to the engineering team at NASCAR, and then the teams working with them.

I think everyone in the garage area, the whole industry worked with NASCAR to try to bring this car to where it is. And we were fortunate to have a couple successes early on, but I can tell you one race or two races are not going to make the championship overnight.

Number one, I take my hat off to NASCAR and our guys being able to put it together. I think it was terrific.

Q. Your rookie driver is qualified now for the playoffs. Your thoughts on that? You just mentioned one or two races don't make a championship, but you will at least have one car in the playoffs this year.

ROGER PENSKE: Well, listen, if we can have a car in the playoffs after the first race, that's a big deal. Having Austin as a rookie, and I'm sure he'll have a lot more stage points and more wins if we get to these road courses where he's got expertise -- in fact, it's interesting that Blaney and Joey have gone to Austin for some advice on road courses. We're going to have a good team effort here all year.

But to be in the Chase or in the finals is amazing.

Q. Travis Geisler told me earlier that Ryan Blaney is the best teammate that he's ever seen when it comes to superspeedway racing. What do you see out of Blaney and the style of racing, and what do you think makes for a good teammate when it comes to this style of racing?

ROGER PENSKE: I think it's the person. I think it's the human being himself. I think we've taught a lot about racing. He was a racer when he came in, and we've given him good equipment. And he listens, and I think he knows his teammates can help him, and vice versa. And I think he has that as his MO.

I think Joey has taken the leadership on the team, being the senior guy, and Ryan, also, and I think they're both trying to mentor Austin and Harrison. I think we've got a great combination of young guys and people that can be here for a long time, and I hope many times we can be here.

Q. (No microphone.)

ROGER PENSKE: I always kid him, I say, You've got to be a little more excited.

Well, he was excited today, really. And Megan, Austin's mother, to see them, big hug, and to see their son go across the finish line and win the Daytona 500, I guess you'd be pretty excited. And I know Tim and Megan were, so it was great to see that.

Q. (No microphone.)

ROGER PENSKE: He even got out of his cool, calm way today. I think he said, I'm going to really celebrate; my boy won the Daytona 500.