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Fox News
21-05-2025
- Automotive
- Fox News
Team Penske releases three top executives following Indy 500 qualifying violations
In the wake of the team's second major technical violation in two years, Roger Penske announced the departure of three of its main INDYCAR race team executives, including longtime executive Tim Cindric from the Team Penske race team organization. The statement from the team called them "departures," but it has all the looks of a firing. Cindric, who was the team president throughout all series up until this year when he stepped back to run the INDYCAR team, had been with the organization since 1999. Also ousted were the team's INDYCAR managing director Ron Ruzewski and general manager Kyle Moyer. All three also served as team strategists — Cindric for Josef Newgarden, Ruzewski for Will Power and Moyer for Scott McLaughlin. Ruzewski had been with the team since 2005; Moyer since 2015. "Nothing is more important than the integrity of our sport and our race teams," Penske said. "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." The most recent violation came in qualifying Sunday when INDYCAR officials found the cars of Newgarden and Power had fill in the seams at the connection with the attenuator at the rear of the car. Neither was allowed to participate in the Sunday qualifying session for the top-12 cars and INDYCAR president Doug Boles announced Monday they would start at the rear of the field for the Indy 500 while Cindric and Ruzewski were suspended for the race and the teams fined $100,000. In the wake of the violation, photos of the 2024 race-winning Newgarden car that is also displayed in the speedway museum also appear to have the seams filled as well. This violation still paled in comparison to the one at the start of the 2023 season when Newgarden was stripped of his St. Petersburg victory and Scott McLaughlin was disqualified from that race for having the push-to-pass system engaged during restarts, a violation of INDYCAR rules. Roger Penske then decided to suspend Cindric and Ruzewski for the month of May as well as the team engineers. Cindric, in commenting Sunday after the violations were discovered, said the seam filling appeared arbitrary as McLaughlin's crashed car from earlier did not have the seams filled (which was confirmed by Boles). McLaughlin kept his starting position of 10th. "In our eyes, it's not a performance advantage but at the end of the day, if they don't like the seam being filled, they don't like the seam being filled," Cindric said Sunday. "You've got to do what the inspection process is and conform to that. "We'll live with it and start on the fourth row. ... Everybody's trying to make the cars as sleek as you can and whether this much makes a difference or not, the facts are this didn't pass inspection." Because Penske owns both the series and has race teams that compete in the series, how the team is treated by series officials when it comes to the rules attracts major scrutiny. Boles said on Wednesday that INDYCAR continues to work on creating a separate entity to handle officiating and technical inspections that will make it more separate from Penske's motorsports operations with the goal of having it in place for 2026. "We have been working very, very hard to create an officiating entity — race control and tech inspection — that is completely removed from anything that has to do with Penske Entertainment or Roger Penske or the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in the INDYCAR Series. "We want to ensure that we have an officiating entity that has no ability for folks to say it's got influence from Roger Penske. Am I saying that the last 72 hours had influence from Roger Penske? I'm telling you, it absolutely did not." Boles also said with time in tech being limited, they often focus on parts and pieces that can impact competition rather than safety, and the attenuator issue was a safety issue, not a performance enhancement. "On parts that are specifically designed for safety, our team in tech does not, on a regular basis, look at those," Boles said. "And this is one of those parts that was not looked at until it was seen on Sunday. Is that a miss? Absolutely it's a miss?" So why was it found on Sunday? "[Our official] doesn't know why he looked at it," Boles said. "There are 600 part numbers on a Dallara car that include about 1,000 parts, not including the bolts and the washers and the nuts. "Our team is focused on making sure that they're paying attention to the parts that actually impact what happens on the race track. So there's a lot of parts that you might see out of the corner of your eye or might cause you to look at that." Appearing on Kevin Harvick's Happy Hour podcast this week, rival team owner Chip Ganassi didn't mince words. "All teams have a certain responsibility to uphold the integrity of the sport in any series," Ganassi said. "And [that includes] no team more than Team Penske. They've had so much success over the years. … It's certainly a problem when the pursuit of winning compromises integrity and sportsmanship." Bob Pockrass covers NASCAR and IndyCar for FOX Sports. He has spent decades covering motorsports, including over 30 Daytona 500s, with stints at ESPN, Sporting News, NASCAR Scene magazine and The (Daytona Beach) News-Journal. Follow him on Twitter @bobpockrass. BEST OF FOX SPORTS' INDY 500 COVERAGE:
Fox News
21-05-2025
- Automotive
- Fox News
Penske front office overhaul a move to protect Roger Penske's integrity
Roger Penske had to do something. And when Penske has to do something, it usually isn't done in a meek way. Penske released his top three INDYCAR race team executives — Tim Cindric (president), Ron Ruzewski (team manager) and Kyle Moyer (general manager). And not just because the team was found to have skirted the rule book twice in a 15-month period. Certainly, that was part of it. But the firings dished out on Wednesday were necessary because these violations made people question Penske's integrity, since he is the one whose company oversees the rules and runs the inspections of the race where his teams' cars compete. When Penske in 2019 decided to purchase the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and INDYCAR, he acknowledged the inherent conflict of interest and at that time said he wouldn't sit on Team Penske pit boxes during events. "I understand the integrity [issue], and there's got to be a bright line," he said at the time. "I know what my job is, and hopefully I've got enough credibility with everyone that we can be sure that there is not a conflict, and I'll do my very best to be sure that isn't. "If you think it is, I know that you folks will tell me pretty quick. So I've got a lot of guys watching me." Despite everyone watching, for the second time in less than 15 months, Penske teams have been found to significantly violate INDYCAR rules. Last year's St. Petersburg issue was more egregious. Josef Newgarden and Scott McLaughlin were disqualified (Newgarden had won the race) weeks after the event when it was discovered they had their push-to-pass engaged on restarts. INDYCAR rules require that it not be engaged until near the end of the first green-flag lap. Few in the garage believed that it was anything other than an honest mistake, especially considering that the rule wasn't in place for the 2024 exhibition race at Thermal, which followed St. Pete. Then came the issue on Sunday with the Newgarden and Will Power cars, where they had a seam filled where the attenuator attaches to the rear of the car. That would be considered an illegal modification. Whether they did it to be sleek visually or intended it to potentially help a tiny bit with aero, the rule book seems pretty clear it was not allowed. It cost Newgarden and Power a potential front-row starting spot (they'll now start at the rear of the field). And it made people wonder how long this has been going on and why it wasn't caught earlier — considering Newgarden's winning car from 2024 appears to have the same seam filled. One race win in 2024 was taken away. Another 2024 win is being questioned. The legitimacy of starting positions in the 2025 Indy 500 is also being questioned. It was more than Penske could bear. "We have had organizational failures during the last two years, and we had to make necessary changes," Penske said Wednesday in a statement. Not only does it look bad for someone who prides himself on being on the up-and-up, it could also impact Honda's decision to stay in the sport. Andretti Global owner Dan Towriss said in March that Honda wants to see costs decrease but also wanted to see something when it comes to administering the rules. "They want to see independence in certain areas," he said. That independence was exactly for just this situation. If the Penske cars had the seams filled for previous events (or qualifying Saturday), did inspectors miss it? Did they see it and decide it wasn't a big issue until Sunday? Were Penske cars treated any differently than other cars? While the onus on this can be on the inspection side of the INDYCAR arm, it can also be taken care of on the team side. If they don't break the rules, there's no question. That can be a hard thing to do and remain competitive. The adage in racing of "if you're not cheating, you're not trying" creates a cat-and-mouse game between the teams and inspectors. It's a game, it could be argued, that everyone plays to some extent. But it's a game with much higher stakes for Penske as owner of the series. Just how much of a difference does filling the seams makes? That's debatable. But it's also not the point. It could be argued that if this was so egregious and blatantly out in the open, how come other teams didn't say anything to INDYCAR President Doug Boles, who assumed that role this year? But again, that's not the point. The point is that Penske had to show how seriously he takes the integrity issue. Cindric, Ruzewski and Moyer didn't get where they were without talent and being valuable pieces to the organization. Losing all three will make it challenging for Penske to achieve the same performance. Releasing one of the three probably wouldn't have been enough to at least get the attention of other owners and stakeholders. Team owners and other stakeholders must believe they get a fair shake. If they don't have that belief, it could impact sponsors, future team investment and manufacturers that compete in the sport. Penske had to prove a point this week. Point taken. Bob Pockrass covers NASCAR and INDYCAR for FOX Sports. He has spent decades covering motorsports, including over 30 Daytona 500s, with stints at ESPN, Sporting News, NASCAR Scene magazine and The (Daytona Beach) News-Journal. Follow him on Twitter @bobpockrass.
