ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Last year, team owner Roger Penske returned to sports car racing with Acura Team Penske, won the 102nd Indianapolis 500 for a record-extending 17th time, claimed his second NASCAR Monster Energy Cup Series championship and was voted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame.
Penske called it the greatest season in Team Penske history.
That’s pretty high praise from the 82-year-old Penske, who has won more than 500 races in his career and has earned championships in every series he has entered with the exception of Formula One.
There is a pretty good reason Penske called it the best year of his life and he elaborated on that point prior to the Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg.
The admission may have been unintended, but Penske acknowledged publicly for the first time that he had a kidney transplant in September 2017. The kidney donor was his eldest son, Greg.
The operation was performed at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., a week or two after Josef Newgarden won the 2017 IndyCar Series championship.
Penske made the admission when a reporter asked Tim Cindric about his Feb. 20 hip replacement, which was also performed at the Mayo Clinic.
“When I did that transplant, we were up at the end of the day. They said, ‘Would you get up and walk over to the window?’” Penske said. “Next day, I’m over in my son’s room.
“They get you going. It’s amazing. It’s a good spot, good spot.”
Penske needed a kidney transplant because he had just one kidney after one was removed when he was diagnosed with bladder cancer in 2005.
When the lone remaining kidney developed an issue, Penske needed a transplant. His son was the logical donor.
Penske’s oldest son is the chairman/CEO of Penske Motor Group, which owns and operates Toyota, Lexus and Mercedes-Benz dealerships in California and a Toyota dealership in Texas. He is also considered by many to be the heir apparent to the Team Penske racing empire, although his father has no plans to retire.
Roger Penske has always said racing is his “golf game,” although Penske himself is a scratch golfer when he does have the chance to play.
He has no plans to slow down, even staying on the timing stand for all 24 hours of the Rolex 24 At Daytona for the second year in a row. If he isn’t at an NTT IndyCar Series race, he’s at a NASCAR race. If not there, he’s calling strategy for the IMSA sports car team.
It’s a team that runs on success.
“It’s amazing,” Penske said. “I walk in the shop, and the first thing the NASCAR guys say is, that’s great what they did in Australia. We bring them together. Tim Cindric (president of Team Penske) does a real good job. We had our big meeting four or five weeks ago when the guys were here from Australia. There’s good camaraderie among all of our operations.
“When you’re in the different series and we’re trying to have the best people we can; we moved a lot of people over from IndyCar to sports cars and back to IndyCar. People are going back and forth and we’ll continue to do that,” Penske added. “One of the best young guys now doing strategy was a strategist for me on Helio Castroneves’ Indy car. He’s doing a hell of a job down there now. So, these are the things we’re trying to do.
“They’ll stay there for a while and migrate back. This is what we want.”
Cindric believes the team has healthy competition within all of its racing operations.
“The IndyCar guys showed up here this weekend and our drivers were like it’s up to us now,” Cindric said. “In a healthy way, it spurs them on because they can’t get too comfortable.”
Just a few months after the transplant, Penske pulled his famed “all-nighter” at the Rolex 24 At Daytona and followed that up with a breakfast meeting in Ireland and a lunch meeting in Germany the very next day.
Then came Will Power’s May Indy 500 victory. A few days before that, Penske was voted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame.
Later in the year, Joey Logano won the NASCAR Cup Series title for Penske.
When Penske was inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame this past January, it was Greg Penske who introduced his father.
It was a very special bond that connected the two both emotionally and physically.
Thanks to Greg Penske, Roger Penske enjoyed one of the most memorable years of his life.