A personal net worth of $7 billion and a signing authority of a company that generates a revenue of over $39 billion. Both were created from scratch in a lifetime. Not many apart from Penske Corporation CEO Roger Penske have achieved such greatness in mankind’s recent history. What laid the founding stone for this spectacular journey is pure discipline and motivation.
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The 87-year-old recently attended the NASCAR Annual Awards banquet and answered questions from the press. He cited the reason for his success as “It all started in 1951 when my dad took me to Indy. I guess I got bitten by the racing bug and instead of going to parties at night I had an engine open in my mother’s wash tub with a gunk smell through the house.”
A decade later, he’d been named by Sports Illustrator as “Driver of the Year” in 1961 and was steadily climbing the ranks. He continued, “When I became a Chevrolet dealer in February 1965, part of the agreement was that I had to stop racing.”
“I had to go to the bank to get financing. I also had to get insurance. So, it was an easy step for me to go out of racing and then build it within the company.”
He chose to focus on the corporate world and Penske Racing Corporation was born in 1966. Since then, Penske has focused more on finding the right people to work for the company.
The rewards for his hard work are reflected in the portfolio of businesses that he owns from the IndyCar Series, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and Team Penske to Penske Corporation.
How Penske set the golden standard for motorsports success
What Penske does best is hiring the perfect people for the right position. He believes that luck happens when preparation meets opportunity and has created his race team’s mindset with the same DNA.
One of the key people in his leadership team is Walt Czarnecki. He once ran the Michigan Speedway for Penske and is Team Penske’s Vice Chairman today.
He is also a member of the executive committee and one of Penske Corporation’s directors. Michael Nelson is the team’s president of NASCAR operations.
He joined the fold in 1998 as a data acquisition engineer and became a crew chief in 2007 before taking on his current role. The payroll of Team Penske is filled with many more bottom-to-top stories like these.
Longevity is prevalent throughout the organization in many of its vertices and stands tall as the biggest reason for Penske’s success. It is why the team has 19 Indianapolis 500s and 44 championships.
