Recharged

By SHAV GLICK

Oct. 25, 2000 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

When Roger Penske, the most successful car owner in Indy car history, decided to overhaul his racing team, one of his first moves was to replace himself.

Drastic situations call for drastic measures.

Penske’s CART team had gone more than three years without winning. Not since Paul Tracy had won in 1997 at St. Louis, No. 99 for Penske, had there been a victory.

Waiting and wishing for No. 100 was becoming intolerable.

For the 2000 season, Penske had new drivers in Gil de Ferran and Helio Castroneves, a new chassis manufacturer in Reynard, a new engine builder in Honda, a new tire maker in Firestone--and a new president of Penske Racing Inc. in Tim Cindric.

Gone were driver Al Unser Jr., the 1994 CART champion and winner of the 1994 Indianapolis 500 and 11 other races for Penske; the Penske chassis, the Ilmor Mercedes engine of which Penske was part owner, and Goodyear tires, a Penske team staple from the beginning.

Not gone, but stepping aside slightly, was “the Captain” himself, who for years had made the racing team his No. 1 priority while running a $10-billion corporation with more than 34,000 employees at 3,600 facilities worldwide.

Cindric, a tall, slender native of Indianapolis, became, at 31, the Captain’s chief lieutenant.

“I had all the changes in place before the race last year in Fontana, but I realized that I had to find someone to run the team on a day-to-day basis while I worked at other things,” Penske said.

“I had known Tim for quite some time. His father had built Offy engines for us in the ‘70s. He had a great reputation. I knew Tim had done great things working for Bobby Rahal so I contacted him. It turned out he had a real desire to work for us. He was exactly what we needed.”

The results have been dramatic.

The elusive victory No. 100 was notched by de Ferran at Nazareth, Pa., followed quickly by 101 at Detroit by Castroneves, 102 at Portland by de Ferran and 103 and 104 by Castroneves at Mid-Ohio and Laguna Seca.

And with only Sunday’s Marlboro 500 at California Speedway remaining this season, de Ferran is poised to possibly bring Penske his 10th CART championship. With a five-point lead over Adrian Fernandez, the Brazilian veteran needs to finish second to assure winning the title and its $1-million bonus--even if Fernandez repeats his last year’s win.

It’s almost as if Cindric was born for the job.

“I had always wanted to work with Roger, as far back as when my father worked for him,” said Cindric. “I grew up in Indianapolis, surrounded by the aura of what Penske had done, but I never felt sending him a resume was the right way. I felt if I deserved the chance, it would happen sometime.

“Still, it was quite a surprise when it did. He called me one night at home, just before last year’s Australia race [Oct. 17]. Things happened fast. Before we got to Fontana [Oct. 30], I was committed to Penske.

“The organizational changes were made prior to my arrival, but the execution of the transactions were under my command. Without a doubt, no one, at least not in my memory, has ever changed so much at the same time as Penske did.”

One thing that didn’t change, however, was the team’s infrastructure. Except for the drivers and engineers responsible for the engine, chassis and tire changes, the backbone of Penske Racing remained in place.

“Tim has done a magnificent job, but he took over a solid group that has been with us for some time,” Penske said.

Cindric, who graduated from Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology at Terre Haute, Ind., in 1990 with a degree in mechanical engineering, set a goal for himself--to be a team manager or race engineer by the time he was 35.

“It happened nine years early,” he said. “I was only 26 when Bobby Rahal and Carl Hogan asked me to manage their team. I wasn’t sure if I was ready, but I learned to rely on those around me with experience.”

In 1998 and 1999, Cindric was named CART’s team manager of the year while working for Rahal.

Earlier this year, de Ferran called Cindric the catalyst needed to get the Penske machine moving.

“It was not unlike a chemical reaction,” the Brazilian engineering graduate told the Chicago Tribune. “You have all the elements all over the place. All you need is a catalyst thrown in the middle to get the process started to get a different final product. I think Tim Cindric had a lot of do with that.”

Penske, who seemed at times to be more absorbed with his NASCAR Winston Cup teams, what with Rusty Wallace and Jeremy Mayfield winning races, says he decided on his champ car overhaul before the 1999 season began.

“I decided if we weren’t able to compete, we had to make some drastic moves.

“The first was with Al Jr. In May, I told him that, based on his performance, I was not going to re-up his contract. We both felt it might be time to go in different directions, for the good of both of us.

“That was the start. That was the easy part. The next change was the engine and I knew that was going to be tough. I was 25% owner of Ilmor. In fact, I had started it with Paul Morgan and Mario Illien with GM and then we got Mercedes involved.

“I talked with Paul about how we had been slumping and we needed some new direction and he agreed it might be wise to make a switch.

“The decision to try Honda was easier because Gil had been their test driver. It was an ideal transition.”

Later in the season, Mercedes-Benz announced it was withdrawing from CART racing entirely to concentrate on its Formula One engine program.

“Changing chassis was nothing new to us,” Penske said. “We had done that before. And even though we switched to Reynard, we continued to develop and build parts in our shop in Poole, [England], so even though we run Reynards, we have Penske touches on them.

“Winning is what is important. We have over 25,000 employees worldwide and if we asked them if they would rather win races or have their name plastered on the side of a car, we know how that vote would come out. We all want to win.

“The wild card was tires. Everything we owned, our trucks, haulers, equipment, everything was marked ‘Goodyear.’ They had supported us for years and we had supported them. Then they made the decision for us. They withdrew.

“It came as a complete surprise when Goodyear pulled out of open-wheel racing. The decision was made for business reasons, but it made life a lot easier for me to switch to Firestone.”

Then there was the problem of replacing Unser. Penske wanted a return to a two-driver team.

“We needed a sponsor for a second car. When I told Marlboro about our changes, they said if we were that serious about it, they would sponsor two cars. That gave us the momentum to move ahead.”

Penske’s first driver choice was Greg Moore, the young Canadian who in 1997 became the youngest driver, at 22, to win a CART race.

“Greg had to finish his season with [Player’s Forsythe] his old team, but he was our first hire,” said Penske. “Greg told us he didn’t care what tires, what engine or what chassis we used, he just wanted to drive for Penske Racing.”

But Moore never drove for Penske. He was killed during the season’s final race, the Marlboro 500 at California Speedway.

“Greg was not officially a Penske driver, but as far as we were concerned, he was already in our plans and thoughts. That was the final blow to what had been a bad, bad year. We lost [driver] Gonzalo [Rodriguez] at Laguna Seca, and then Greg.”

The two-driver team turned out to be a pair of Brazilians from Sao Paulo, de Ferran and Castroneves.

“Gil, we wanted from the start,” Penske said. “He had been running the same tires we had, so we knew what he could do. I had been impressed with the way he ran for Jim Hall [in 1995 and ‘96]. Technically, he is as sharp as any driver I have ever had, and he is also a good motivator.”

Cindric tells how Castroneves became part of the team.

“When Moore had his accident, we were already underway with our plans for 2000. We needed to find someone with the same enthusiasm, the same hunger, as Greg. We looked around and the cupboard was pretty bare.

“Then Helio became available. He was driving for Carl Hogan at Fontana, but then it was announced that Hogan was dropping out of racing. This left Helio without a ride and we snatched him up.”

At the time, the driver was Castro-Neves, but during the season the personable Helio asked that the hyphen be dropped.

“I didn’t like it when people would call me either Castro or Neves,” he said. “I wanted them to say my whole name. I liked it when I won at Detroit. People knew me as Castroneves.”

Penske’s team has won five races this season and all concerned give credit to the cooperation among drivers, engineers and crewmen, --and the dedication of the Captain.

“We share everything,” Castroneves said. “When one of us tests alone, everything we learn is given to the other team.”

Said de Ferran, “We are fortunate, Helio and I, that as different as we are, our driving styles are quite similar. It makes it easier to use information back and forth.”

As he has been since he and the late Mark Donohue began their foray into Indy cars in 1969, Penske is in the pits on race day, masterminding at least one team during the race.

This year, Penske runs de Ferran’s pit, Cindric Castroneves’.

“On race day, RP and I come with two buttons on our headsets,” Cindric said. “One button is to communicate with the drivers, the other is to talk to each other. We discuss when to make pit stops. That’s crucial because we don’t want one of our drivers getting in the other’s way.

“And we discuss things like tire wear, fuel consumption and how the cars are reacting to the track.

“When you’re around RP for long, it’s easy to understand why he is so successful, and why his employees stay so loyal to him. His work ethic is contagious. No one around him works as hard as RP himself. I do everything I can to get in step with him, but it’s not easy. It is very rewarding, though.”

If you can’t tell the red and white No. 2 and No. 3 Marlboro cars apart when they’re in the pits, there are a couple of telltale signs. RP will be out in front of de Ferran’s pit, looking over the scene like a general surveying the battle scene. Cindric will be seated under a canopy, poring over the information pouring into his computer from Castroneves’ car.

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Winners’ Circle

Roger Penske’s racing winners:

INDY CARS (102)

Rick Mears: 29

Al Unser Jr.: 12

Danny Sullivan: 12

Paul Tracy: 11

Emerson Fittipaldi: 11

Bobby Unser: 11

Al Unser: 3

Tom Sneva:3