Why Roger Penske is an American motorsport icon

By:

David Malsher-Lopez

Dec 28, 2020, 9:06 PM

In this exclusive one-on-one interview, Roger Penske reveals the inner drive that has made him not only a hugely successful team owner and businessman but also the owner of Indianapolis Motor Speedway and IndyCar. He spoke to David Malsher-Lopez.

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This story comes from our sister title Autosport's 196-page special magazine to celebrate its 70th birthday. All current print subscribers will receive a copy for free but to order your copy of the 196-page Autosport 70th Anniversary issue, please click here.

Roger Penske runs the most iconic and diverse motorsport team in American history, and since last offseason he has also owned both IndyCar and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Most remarkable, though, is that he remains a regular Joe human yet a G.I. Joe hero at the racetrack and in the boardroom.

David Malsher-Lopez

David Malsher-Lopez is Motorsport.com’s U.S. editor, covering the NTT IndyCar Series and IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship. Since completing journalism college in 1994, he has worked for Autosport, TRMG, Motor Sport, Autosport (again) and Racer, before joining Motorsport.com in 2015… where he has found himself enjoying a third spell writing for Autosport. Over the course of those 27 years, he has served as a journalist, sub-editor, features editor, deputy editor and editor. In 2015, he also wrote Will Power’s biography. David lives with his wife Sophia in California and when not writing about racing, he will be found reading about planes and classic cars, attending airshows, listening to a wide variety of music or watching cop shows from the ’70s. He intends to one day own a grand piano, an Airedale terrier and a vintage Pontiac. He doesn’t do Facebook and doesn’t understand Instagram but can be found @DavidMalsher on Twitter.