Bob Pockrass
Fox Motorsports Insider
In the wake of the second major technical violation of the team in two years, Roger Penske announced the departure of three of his main Indycar racing team leaders, whose Tim Cindric’s long -standing framework of the team’s racing team.
The declaration of the team called them “departures”, but it has the whole look of a dismissal. Cindric, who was the president of the team throughout all series until this year, when he returned to lead the Indycar team, was with the organization since 1999.
Ron Ruzewski, CEO of the team, the Director General of the Indycar, and the Director General Kyle Moyer. The three were also team strategists – Cindric for Josef Newgarden, Ruzewski for Will Power and Moyer for Scott McLaughlin.
Ruzewski had been on the team since 2005; MYYER since 2015.
“Nothing is more important than the integrity of our sport and our race teams,” said Penske. “We have had organizational failures in the past two years and had to make the necessary changes.
“I apologize to our fans, our partners and our organization for having dropped them.”
The most recent violation came in qualification on Sunday when Indycar officials discovered that Newgarden and Power cars had filled the seams to connection with the attenuator at the back of the car.
None of the two was authorized to participate in the Sunday qualification session for the first 12 cars and the president of Indycar, Doug Boles, announced on Monday that they would start in the back of the field for Indy 500 while Cindric and Ruzewski would have been suspended for the race and that the teams had a fine of $ 100,000.
Following the violation, the photos of the Newgarden car winning the race in 2024 which are also displayed at the Speedway Museum also seem to have the seams filled.
This violation has always pale compared to that at the start of the 2023 season when Newgarden was stripped of his victory for Saint Petersburg and Scott McLaughlin was disqualified from this race to have the push system to pass during the restarts, a violation of the rules of Indycar. Roger Penske then decided to suspend Cindric and Ruzewski for the month of May as well as team engineers.
Cindric, commenting on Sunday after the discovery of the violations, said that the filling of sewing seemed arbitrary while the crushed car of McLaughlin since earlier had not filled the seams (which was confirmed by Boles). McLaughlin has kept its 10th starting position.
“In our eyes, it is not a performance advantage but in the end, if they do not like the full seam, they do not like the seam to be filled,” Cindric said on Sunday. “You have to do what the inspection process is and conform to it.
“We will live with and start on the fourth row. … Everyone tries to make the cars as elegant as possible and if that makes a difference or not, the facts are that it did not succeed.”
Because Penske has both the series and has racing teams that participate in the series, the way the team is treated by the officials of the series with regard to the rules attracts a major examination.
“I can say that it is devastating for him,” said Boles on Monday. “Nothing means anymore to Roger think that Indianapolis Motor Speedway and Indianapolis 500. He certainly likes the race at all levels.”
Appearing on Kevin Harvick’s Podcast Happy Hour this week, the owner of the rival team, Chip Ganassi, did not chop words.
“All teams have a certain responsibility to maintain the integrity of sport in any series,” said Ganassi. “And (that includes) no team more than the Penske team, they have been so successful over the years. … This is certainly a problem when the continuation of victory compromises integrity and sporting spirit.”
Bob Pockrass covers Nascar and Indycar for Fox Sports. He has spent decades to cover motorsport, including more than 30 Daytona 500, with stays in ESPN, Sporting News, Nascar Scene Magazine and Le (Daytona Beach) News-Journal. Follow it on Twitter @bobpockrash.
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