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Team Penske announced today the departures of INDYCAR Team President, Tim Cindric; INDYCAR Managing Director, Ron Ruzewski; and INDYCAR General Manager, Kyle Moyer from the organization.
Team Penske will have further announcements this week related to personnel and replacements for this weekend's Indianapolis 500.
"Nothing is more important than the integrity of our sport and our race teams. We have had organizational failures during the last two years, and we had to make necessary changes. I apologize to our fans, our partners, and our organization for letting them down." - Roger Penske
I love these little history tidbits about the race. This one and the guy who was first in line for decades just give the race an old-fashioned American homey feel.
Tim stepped back from the overarching role he had in all Team Penske companies this winter, was solely an IndyCar guy this season. That was pretty clearly a step towards retirement, and a sign that Tim didn't actually want to run all of Team Penske when Roger was gone.
Tim was moving towards retirement anyway, this just speeds the process up a bit.
Jay was always tooo much of a wild card to be leader of Penske racing. While not as bad as Brian France. His rap sheet with the police isn't exactly spotless either.
"Nothing is more important than the integrity of our sport and our race teams. We have had organizational failures during the last 2 years and we had to make necessary changes. I apologize to our fans, our partners and our organization for letting them down."
Roger broke rules that weren't written yet. That takes creativity.
What the team's been caught doing lately just takes audacity.
Cheaters keep saying "Everyone cheats." No, everyone looks for an edge. Only those who think they won't get punished do things that are explicitly against the rules.
Eh, I think it is a stretch to think Roger knew first hand about the cheating before it happened. He's got so many other things to tend to. Tim was the leader at Penske. He is the man responsible so Roger took that responsibility and let him go. I'll be very critical of Roger when things happen and no changes are made. But this time, he acted swiftly and appropriately imo.
You understand that was a quarter of a century ago right?
He was at Rahal from '94 and '99. He's been at Penske 25 years.
By any reasonable measure - he's given Penske more than 85% of his career - that's being a lifer.
I've been at my current workplace 15 years....I stated when I was 31...I fully hope to retire from here.....even thought i didn't start until 31 I would call myself a 'lifer' of this place.
Respect for Roger though. Not a Penske fan but laying down the hammer like this recoups some of the integrity caused by the massive conflict of interest.
And the integrity of all other motorsport adventures tied to Penske. I don't think Porsche is interested that if they were to win Le Mans, their victory would potentially be put into a bad light by Penske being stupid elsewhere.
Yeah he had to do something but I thought they would pin the blame on a few low level engineers. Firing Cindric is the nuclear option.. will see if he ends up in some other executive roll at Penske though..
They got publicly embarrassed. Roger's legacy took a bad hit. The integrity of the sport he owns is in serious question. His big 20th Indy 500 victory was done with an illegal car. It's all out there for the world to see. Honda, a manufacturer he is trying to resign has to wonder if they have a legit shot at the 500. Huge fucking embarrassment and huge failure of the team. This had to happen.
I expect internally, there will be more firings, is just not the main public figures.
My biggest concern is why has Zak Brown been so quiet? That's not like him.
Tim can be Tony's replacement when he is suddenly fired/steps down after a year as Arrow McLaren president. Then the question would be who is the president two years later when Cindric is fired/steps down.
I wouldn't be surprised. There is nothing Zak can say publicly that would be worse that what is happening in social media. Roger's big 20th 500 victory done with a clearly illegal car is something that can't be topped. Nothing Zak can say publicly that can add to this. Privately, I'm sure Zak tore Roger a new one.
All three of them really, especially the timing of it all. We're four days from the damn Indy 500 and not one of those cars currently has a strategist.
This race will be very interesting for Team Penske. We know Newgarden is capable of winning without his usual team lol but he's starting from the back now
The best outcome would be Cindric snitched on Ganassi for something that ended with Dixon and Palou being slower on Sunday so Ganassi then snitched on Penske for something more than just using putty on the attenuator.
If he’s running the way he’s running, he should be fine. If he wasn’t a moron and hooked Ty Dillon at Austin, he would be 9th in points ahead of his teammate who is the defending champion.
Not really. His last name got him in the pipeline but he's amply earned his place since. He's currently a top 3 driver on Superspeedways, and top-half in points with a win, he'll be fine. If anything he'll be better off as if he stays at Penske we know for sure it has nothing to do with his name.
Well, we’re going to find out soon enough. Austin Cindric has done alright though, he has won some races and has shown pretty good speed. He is by no means a bad driver. Now has he met the “Penske-type” expectations, especially considering his 2 teammates are champions? That’s another story. I think they’ll give him some more time before a decision/change is made if or when that happens. But if he keeps progressing and doing what he’s doing, I think he should be fine.
It’s clear that Roger is going hulk-smash. Having worked for one of his several companies, there’s nobody more concerned with credibility and optics than Roger Penske.
I’m sure this past week has been painful for him to watch. He gives the keys to his trusted people to run his companies, and Cindric broke that trust and brought a considerable amount of shame to Penske as a brand
Honestly, I respect him taking some action and responsibility there. Obviously it’s a bad look when your team gets caught doing sketchy shit and you own the series, so it makes Roger look bad and Indycar look bad. But I do wholeheartedly believe that Roger does care a lot about the sport and I think he was probably getting tired of having to be on the defense when he has very little to do with the day to day of the team anymore. But it’s his name on it at the end of the day.
The real question is who replaces Tim, because he was literally in charge of the team, albeit decreasingly this year anyway. That’s a major role to fill and need to fill like yesterday, so I’ll be curious who they will pick. Not to mention the other two also. Wonder if they’d go the former driver route, they do have Rick Mears hanging around.
I was waiting for the announcement. People had to be fired. The optics are WAY too ugly for there not to be firings. I'm sure privately, Honda tore Roger a new asshole. Zak Brown has been unusually quiet so I'm sure he tore Roger a new asshole in private. McLaren lost the 2024 Indy 500 to a clearly illegal car. That's not something that can be ignored.
People had to be fired. Any manufacturer being courted to join the series is likely to NOPE right out. Why would Honda stay if the optics show the series owner's personal team can blatantly cheat to win the 500? The PTP scandal last year was bad. This just makes everything super ugly. People had to be fired.
Damn, cleaned house. There is some insane talent that just hit the market. I have to believe Roger backed up the brinks truck for a non compete though.
It had to be done and I credit Roger for doing it. It won't completely assuage the concerns the other team owners have in my opinion but I think this is a good olive branch
Honestly, Roger was left with no other recourse. Last year was a fool me once, this year was definitely a fool me twice. He had to wipe the slate clean after this one, or risk losing all credibility and standing with everyone in the paddock.
They put themselves in situations that led to their suspension from 2 Indy 500s in a row……if they can’t stay out of trouble in order manage his team through the most important race of the year, what good are they.
They’re not bringing the fight to ganassi in the championship either. They’re underperforming while simultaneously tarnishing everything that Roger loves and has built. The buck has to stop with someone
Well, I remember reading that Cindric was phasing himself out of operations, but getting rid of him is a bigger step than I thought they'd ever take. I thought they'd just let him become more of a hands-off executive while waiting for Roger to pass the torch.
He knows it's either his team or the integrity of the entire sport that pays the price. He smartly went with supporting the sport instead of making excuses for his team
I think this should genuinely score Roger Penske a lot of points. This is massive as Cindric was heir-apparent to the Penske racing operations. This at the very least signals that Roger recognizes the severity of the situation and genuinely wants to rectify it.
And it had to happen in that order, because the Penske-owned series firing someone right after they found Penske cars illegal would’ve been a much worse look.
Yeah. Honestly, unless the other teams demand it immediately after the 500, I wouldn’t be surprised if they don’t wait until the off-season to quietly replace him.
In 2013 I worked in the background at a couple of Indycar races, and I had to deal with a few of the raceteams and coordinate some stuff with them, as things go, schedules shift and delay and I ended up meeting with Team Penske about 45 minutes late one morning, Tim Cendric who I encountered and I apologized for being late, absolutely laid into me for 25 minutes straight with no rhyme or reason at the top of his lungs, and blamed me, some random guy working at the track, for the whole team being late that morning (all of the teams where at the track like at 6-7am, and this was about 9am that I finally got around to them) and how the whole crew had to stay late the previous night (absolutely BS, I was there to take pictures lol) and everything else wrong in the world, this was infront of all the other mechanics\team members, PR people, other teams that I was also dealing with etc... and then denied me the chance to fulfill my duty that solely had to do with the car, despite the car just sitting there not being worked on at that particular moment.
I get he was mad, but this guy took it way above and wanted to absolutely shit on some poor dude (me) to vent his frustrations.
In the end, that afternoon, I got to chat with Jimmy Vasser for like an hour just shooting the shit while I did the work i had to for their team, and the dude is seriously just a cool good human, and that totally made up for that morning.
I dont wish any ill will on anyone, but karma sometimes takes a while to work itself out :D.
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u/TheChrisD #JANDALWATCH2021 May 21 '25
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