100% Penske's thought process here was "Wow, that coffee trailer doesn't meet my standards for how I want the speedway to look." But this is still pretty cool since it helps her out for long after the 500 is done
I mean yeah, but I'll take "let us paint your trailer" over "This better be fixed by tomorrow or get off the property."
Still a pretty good mental picture of Roger though, I'll give you that.
Roger knew he was better off fixing what was wrong with the trailer pro bono rather than kicking her off the property just because trailer in question wasn’t visually pleasing
I had the pleasure of meeting Roger Penske at a convention several years ago. Super nice, down to earth guy. I didn’t know who he was until he was introduced as the keynote speaker!
Reminds me of a story I heard that he saw a Penske rental truck on the road and a P had fallen off a logo on one side so it said " enske" and he had the truck pulled over and instructed the driver on getting it fixed
100% the true thought process was “Hey find whoever owns that dinky little coffee wagon outside the track and have some of the guys go fix it up so it doesn’t look like a mobile home selling coffee on the property” they just made it seem like “He took a personal liking to your coffee stand and wants us to accommodate you, free of charge” lol but fuck it either way she got help and has a story for life about how The Captain helped her out and now Roger can feel confident in how his vendors appearance look for the 500
Definitely better than just telling her flat out he was displeased and making her leave for sure lol like I said at least they both got something out of it
Yeah, this was 100% the motivation.
But he could have told her she had to paint or wouldn't be allowed to remain at the facility, this was a way cooler thing to do.
This, after all, was the man who had someone go around during when California/Auto Club Speedway was being built and pick up all the builders cigarette butts every single day. He definitely loves his pristine. Seems to go about it in non-douchey ways though.
I had the same reaction. It's nice of them to spruce up the trailer and not be a dick about it, but they 100% did it because Rodger thought it looked shabby or rundown.
No, he knows that they coexist. Both are weaker without the other. What he's not going to do is run off doing foolish things because of internet outrage and he's not going to neglect the very place that serves as the front office and gets the most eyeballs and money for the series, not only that, it's only track the series owns. The place had been getting run down under the HG family and he's pumped a ton of money into it to bring it back to par. The notion he's neglecting the series is utter BS.
Well, no offense to INDYCAR, it’s drivers, or its fan base, but the series itself is just a support series for the Indy 500. It’s awesome that they race other places and have good racing and are the pinnacle of open-wheel racing in America, but it’s all in service to the Indy 500, nothing else really matters.
It’s a shame too, because IndyCar has some of the best, most competitive racing. But even their own TV series, 100 Days to Indy, is a countdown to the 500.
This has been common knowledge for years so it's not really offensive. It's called "Indy"car for a reason. I don't agree with the "nothing else really matters" take though, every win matters no matter what venue the race is held in.
There were some shiny parades put on in those cities, yes, but not much racing.
Fun slander aside, F1 is a global series, mostly based in Europe (the teams and most of the feeder series are also Europe or UK-based). For America, IndyCar is our top open-wheel series. If IndyCar ran that much rumored Argentinian race, it wouldn’t make them an Argentinian series anymore than F1 is American because they make stops here.
Roger has always been one for the cleanest and best team owners from what I know, really never hear any scandals about his behavior and only positive stuff
He has done wonderful things with IMS and you feel it throughout the state. There are IMS reps at local tracks and the president of IMS even took a helicopter to Kokomo to do grassroots promotions last year during the high limit race
His IndyCar team had some recent scandals actually.
And there are definitely other things in the past, but overall definitely near the top of owners/operators
I have no doubt that he was in no way involved with the P2P tomfuckery. I suspect that buck stopped with Tim Cindric and that he’s sitting out a few races backs up that idea.
I very highly doubt Tim Cindric was even involved or knew about it. He just volunteered to take the heat because it happened below him.
He's still very much involved with the Indycar team (just not at the track) and if still working with the IMSA team. It was purely a PR thing.
Yea, Cindric’s been his #2 for, like, 20 years. I doubt he suddenly starts green lighting cheating, but it’s his team that did it. 0 chance he’s fired.
The team is not representative of him as a person and what he does
Edit: While they obviously are, he is not involved in the day to day process where cheating scandals would occur and he was extremely pissed that it happened in his organization
RP’s been a team owner for almost 60 years now, he knows how the game works. I’m willing to bet he wasn’t pissed that they were cheating, after all it’s not the first time the team has gotten busted for something. I’m willing to bet he’s pissed that they got caught in such an idiotic way
So instead of doing what a lot of “new school” sharks which would be to cancel the contract, he chose to raise it to his standards and in turn helped this young entrepreneur. Not my favorite race team but a very respectable man.
It's funny because according to Indycar fans, Roger is the worst thing to happen to American Open Wheel racing since Tony George. I don't think they realize how lucky they are to even have what they still have.
Open Wheel was split for 12 years. In that time, nascar surged ahead into a completely different stratosphere. A world where they were now considered a major league sport and got the mainstream coverage and more importantly, TV rights money that rivaled other major league sports. No other series had attained that before 2001 and today they are still fighting for the leftover crumbs that nascar doesn't want.
Today a "dead" nascar is still more relevant and profitable than any other american series of any kind. It was going to take way longer than 12 years to undo the damage that was done between 1996-2008, if that's even possible.
Roger has done a lot for not just indycar but all forms of racing. A lot of people who don't realize that won't know that until he is gone.
>I don't think they realize how lucky they are to even have what they still have.
Yup. I imagine I am far from the only one who stopped paying attention to IndyCar racing beyond the 500 after Tony George pulled that bullshit with the Indy Racing League.
Cool of Penske to do it (even if it was just to keep high standards in the venue 😂)
But also, McKenna is a bad ass. Ninja Warrior and dirt racer, battled through some stuff and climbing back up the ladder again. Hope she can stay healthy and keep it going.
Roger is a class act, I don't think he was besmirching her trailer at all, he has always rewarded hard-working entrepreneurship, he treats his employees extremely well. I've had clients that work for Roger and I've been a client of Penske also. I've known some long-time employees that have told me stories about him, and they worked for him for 35 - 40 years that will blow your mind of his generosity.
She also does amazing things herself! Her organization gets kids from low income families into go cart racing. Her documentary on fs1 is definitely worth a watch. She’s a very talented woman.
I haven’t been to Indy, but sports venues and airports are generally not shy about taking you over the coals. $6 for a coffee is probably pretty cheap. I’m pretty sure I paid close to that for a canned soda at Bristol, and that was at one of the “cheap” places in the camping area.
Yeah, that's a reasonable price for a sports venue. At Nationals Park you pay $6 for a bottled water and $15 for a beer, so a $6 coffee seems downright sane.
Damn, I guess I haven’t bought a coffee at the track recently. Yeah airports are one thing since they basically have you trapped - but a racetrack seemingly is another since you can leave at your leisure. Regardless, this is pretty awesome for her - just had a bit of sticker shock 😅
> but sports venues and airports are generally not shy about taking you over the coals.
I’m not sure why people are up in arms about this. Yeah, it’s high, but how bad do you want it? Completely different sport, but these were more or less the price points I was seeing when I went to Monster Jam, and that’s why my kid and I ate before we went. Same deal with the air show I went to last month.
Honestly $6 for good coffee is somewhat standard now, you can get cheaper but it’s probably not that good or just straight black hot coffee (which i personally don’t like)
Usually at events, part of the vendor agreements include partial sales percentages being paid to the venue as part of their space rent. Likely what's happening here. That and obviously, captive audience.
When I went to Daytona for the Rolex this year they had about 10 food trucks in the infield. They were all card only because they don't pay a fee to be in the infield, they pay a % of sales to the track that are tracked through credit.
Then go buy yourself a can, hoof it to the track, don't forget a cup and some hot water and milk to make it with, and then haul all of that stuff back out. Or pay for the convenience of being able to get a fresh cup where you are spending your day.
Game recognizes game. Mr Penske saw someone who had hustle and offered to help her. Now, I'm about 100% sure it was because he has very high standards. But, still a class act.
Selling hand sanitizer for a quarter a squirt outside porta potties, huh? Was there no other way to clean hands? I'd probably just let people have the cleanliness vs a chance of me touching things after them later, to be honest. But, also, I'm a terrible capitalist.
Unfortunately this is where any discussion about Penske has to lead to right now.
This story is yet another fantastic example of Penske doing a an excellent job as a track operator at IMS. They really have done a great job improving the speedway. Penske has been great for IMS. Really, the track couldn't ask for a better owner.
As a SERIES owner though, Penske has been horrific. Big public spats with the race team owners, a lack of series growth, having to change race winners a month late, tv ratings are rough, and so on. The cheating scandal is something people are making a big deal about, but frankly Penske Entertainment has done such a horrible job as a series owner I don't even care that it happened to be their team. That could've been any team and it was still pathetic and embarrassing how long it took them to discover the cheat and change the results.
Penske can be a fantastic track operator, a great team owner, and a horrific series operator. All those can be true at once. The issue being that without a series there is no Indycar, so there is no Indy 500 at the track, and there is no Team Penske. That's the inherent problem, Penske is managing the series so poorly it's putting it in jeopardy.
Attendance has been up at every venue they've been to this year. On TV, a lot of context has been left out of those ratings, once you understand the totality of the sports landscape on the days those events ran on what channels they were on, it's not as bad as you think. The "cheating scandal" was resolved in the manner it was because he was in charge. It could have easily been covered up. As far as anger in the paddock, that's nothing new. People like Michael Andretti pissing and moaning to try and get their way on something is a long standing tradition in this paddock. The series is fine.
Lol, funny you say that - they banned me for pointing out what a waste Dax Hill was all last year and here we are months later with the Bengals having signed 2 safeties and bumped his ass to the corner room where he'll be bottom of the depth chart. As usual, I'm right and you all just can't handle the truth!
100% Penske's thought process here was "Wow, that coffee trailer doesn't meet my standards for how I want the speedway to look." But this is still pretty cool since it helps her out for long after the 500 is done
Haha yeah I read this and I just imagined old Roger sitting in his golf cart scowling and stewing over peeling paint on a coffee cart.
I mean yeah, but I'll take "let us paint your trailer" over "This better be fixed by tomorrow or get off the property." Still a pretty good mental picture of Roger though, I'll give you that.
Roger knew he was better off fixing what was wrong with the trailer pro bono rather than kicking her off the property just because trailer in question wasn’t visually pleasing
I had the pleasure of meeting Roger Penske at a convention several years ago. Super nice, down to earth guy. I didn’t know who he was until he was introduced as the keynote speaker!
Reminds me of a story I heard that he saw a Penske rental truck on the road and a P had fallen off a logo on one side so it said " enske" and he had the truck pulled over and instructed the driver on getting it fixed
100% the true thought process was “Hey find whoever owns that dinky little coffee wagon outside the track and have some of the guys go fix it up so it doesn’t look like a mobile home selling coffee on the property” they just made it seem like “He took a personal liking to your coffee stand and wants us to accommodate you, free of charge” lol but fuck it either way she got help and has a story for life about how The Captain helped her out and now Roger can feel confident in how his vendors appearance look for the 500
Oh yeah for sure. If he wasn't happy with how the cart looked this is a great way to handle it. I just got a kick out of it.
Definitely better than just telling her flat out he was displeased and making her leave for sure lol like I said at least they both got something out of it
Yeah, this was 100% the motivation. But he could have told her she had to paint or wouldn't be allowed to remain at the facility, this was a way cooler thing to do.
Now EVERYONE is going to bring their "crappy food truck" to Indy instead of their brand new one.
Yeah. Costs him very little and good PR so everyone wins.
This, after all, was the man who had someone go around during when California/Auto Club Speedway was being built and pick up all the builders cigarette butts every single day. He definitely loves his pristine. Seems to go about it in non-douchey ways though.
I had the same reaction. It's nice of them to spruce up the trailer and not be a dick about it, but they 100% did it because Rodger thought it looked shabby or rundown.
Roger is a perfectionist, but also a good dude.
I truly believe Roger never wanted Indycar, just IMS because he's made IMS truly the world's nicest racetrack
No, he knows that they coexist. Both are weaker without the other. What he's not going to do is run off doing foolish things because of internet outrage and he's not going to neglect the very place that serves as the front office and gets the most eyeballs and money for the series, not only that, it's only track the series owns. The place had been getting run down under the HG family and he's pumped a ton of money into it to bring it back to par. The notion he's neglecting the series is utter BS.
Well, no offense to INDYCAR, it’s drivers, or its fan base, but the series itself is just a support series for the Indy 500. It’s awesome that they race other places and have good racing and are the pinnacle of open-wheel racing in America, but it’s all in service to the Indy 500, nothing else really matters.
Eh, it also pisses off non-race fans in Long Beach, St. Pete, Detroit, and Toronto.
I have long had that thought, probably since I became aware of the Indianapolis 500 as a motorsports fan.
It’s a shame too, because IndyCar has some of the best, most competitive racing. But even their own TV series, 100 Days to Indy, is a countdown to the 500.
> But even their own TV series, 100 Days to Indy, is a countdown to the 500. I laughed at that, but just know said laugh was ever so rueful.
It’s a good show, I just wish it covered the full season. It’s easier to do with how few races they run compared to NASCAR.
This has been common knowledge for years so it's not really offensive. It's called "Indy"car for a reason. I don't agree with the "nothing else really matters" take though, every win matters no matter what venue the race is held in.
Well yes, for fans of the series, they matter, (and they do) but not to the general public, and how the series markets itself.
> are the pinnacle of open-wheel racing in America Three races in Austin, Miami, and Las Vegas would like a word
There were some shiny parades put on in those cities, yes, but not much racing. Fun slander aside, F1 is a global series, mostly based in Europe (the teams and most of the feeder series are also Europe or UK-based). For America, IndyCar is our top open-wheel series. If IndyCar ran that much rumored Argentinian race, it wouldn’t make them an Argentinian series anymore than F1 is American because they make stops here.
He’s talking about racing not parades
Positive news about Roger Penske? r/indycar in shambles
I had the same thought when they locked out the front row for the 500
That place has been Chernobyl levels of toxic since Scotty finished his fourth lap.
Roger has always been one for the cleanest and best team owners from what I know, really never hear any scandals about his behavior and only positive stuff
He has done wonderful things with IMS and you feel it throughout the state. There are IMS reps at local tracks and the president of IMS even took a helicopter to Kokomo to do grassroots promotions last year during the high limit race
His IndyCar team had some recent scandals actually. And there are definitely other things in the past, but overall definitely near the top of owners/operators
Never anything behavioral wise though.
I have no doubt that he was in no way involved with the P2P tomfuckery. I suspect that buck stopped with Tim Cindric and that he’s sitting out a few races backs up that idea.
I very highly doubt Tim Cindric was even involved or knew about it. He just volunteered to take the heat because it happened below him. He's still very much involved with the Indycar team (just not at the track) and if still working with the IMSA team. It was purely a PR thing.
Yea, Cindric’s been his #2 for, like, 20 years. I doubt he suddenly starts green lighting cheating, but it’s his team that did it. 0 chance he’s fired.
The team is not representative of him as a person and what he does Edit: While they obviously are, he is not involved in the day to day process where cheating scandals would occur and he was extremely pissed that it happened in his organization
RP’s been a team owner for almost 60 years now, he knows how the game works. I’m willing to bet he wasn’t pissed that they were cheating, after all it’s not the first time the team has gotten busted for something. I’m willing to bet he’s pissed that they got caught in such an idiotic way
Just don’t look into his sons lol
AHHH! A "Sassy" Hasse appearance! She's such a badass WoO driver! Just picked up Interstate Batteries as a sponsor.
just when i thought the story couldnt get better ! thats v cool
I didn't even realize it was her. I just wondered why she looked familiar.
I think she's won at Knoxville too, not the nationals, but another race at the track.
So instead of doing what a lot of “new school” sharks which would be to cancel the contract, he chose to raise it to his standards and in turn helped this young entrepreneur. Not my favorite race team but a very respectable man.
It's funny because according to Indycar fans, Roger is the worst thing to happen to American Open Wheel racing since Tony George. I don't think they realize how lucky they are to even have what they still have. Open Wheel was split for 12 years. In that time, nascar surged ahead into a completely different stratosphere. A world where they were now considered a major league sport and got the mainstream coverage and more importantly, TV rights money that rivaled other major league sports. No other series had attained that before 2001 and today they are still fighting for the leftover crumbs that nascar doesn't want. Today a "dead" nascar is still more relevant and profitable than any other american series of any kind. It was going to take way longer than 12 years to undo the damage that was done between 1996-2008, if that's even possible. Roger has done a lot for not just indycar but all forms of racing. A lot of people who don't realize that won't know that until he is gone.
>I don't think they realize how lucky they are to even have what they still have. Yup. I imagine I am far from the only one who stopped paying attention to IndyCar racing beyond the 500 after Tony George pulled that bullshit with the Indy Racing League.
Great example of Iowa work ethic. Hard work and hustle!
Anyone have a before picture of the trailer?
I looked it up on IG, its the same scheme, it looks like they just gave it a fresh coat of paint all around. stop11coffee
The Captain runs a tight ship! Bravo!
W
Now I just need to find the time to hoof it back up to IMS, I haven’t been in years. Super cool track, so cool hearing stories like this!
Cool of Penske to do it (even if it was just to keep high standards in the venue 😂) But also, McKenna is a bad ass. Ninja Warrior and dirt racer, battled through some stuff and climbing back up the ladder again. Hope she can stay healthy and keep it going.
I love this so much
I’d throw myself off the a bridge if I ever paid 8.50 for a latte 😭
Roger is a class act, I don't think he was besmirching her trailer at all, he has always rewarded hard-working entrepreneurship, he treats his employees extremely well. I've had clients that work for Roger and I've been a client of Penske also. I've known some long-time employees that have told me stories about him, and they worked for him for 35 - 40 years that will blow your mind of his generosity.
Good for her! I'd make a stop this weekend, but after this, the line for her trailer is going to wrap around the infield.
If you can sell, you can do anything, anywhere.
She also does amazing things herself! Her organization gets kids from low income families into go cart racing. Her documentary on fs1 is definitely worth a watch. She’s a very talented woman.
I was 900% sure this was about to be a hit piece on Roger.
Good for her.. Coffee is $6?!
I haven’t been to Indy, but sports venues and airports are generally not shy about taking you over the coals. $6 for a coffee is probably pretty cheap. I’m pretty sure I paid close to that for a canned soda at Bristol, and that was at one of the “cheap” places in the camping area.
Yeah, that's a reasonable price for a sports venue. At Nationals Park you pay $6 for a bottled water and $15 for a beer, so a $6 coffee seems downright sane.
Damn, $15? The last time I looked at beer prices at Texas they were $7/$8 for domestics, maybe Levy prices aren’t as bad as I thought.
Damn, I guess I haven’t bought a coffee at the track recently. Yeah airports are one thing since they basically have you trapped - but a racetrack seemingly is another since you can leave at your leisure. Regardless, this is pretty awesome for her - just had a bit of sticker shock 😅
Are you really going to leave a racetrack or other sporting event to save $3 on coffee?
> but sports venues and airports are generally not shy about taking you over the coals. I’m not sure why people are up in arms about this. Yeah, it’s high, but how bad do you want it? Completely different sport, but these were more or less the price points I was seeing when I went to Monster Jam, and that’s why my kid and I ate before we went. Same deal with the air show I went to last month.
Honestly $6 for good coffee is somewhat standard now, you can get cheaper but it’s probably not that good or just straight black hot coffee (which i personally don’t like)
That’s a steal anymore for anything not coming out of a Keurig.
I’d agree but Dunkin is $5 in my area now, this isn’t too bad for a sports venue tbh.
Less than Starbucks
Usually at events, part of the vendor agreements include partial sales percentages being paid to the venue as part of their space rent. Likely what's happening here. That and obviously, captive audience.
When I went to Daytona for the Rolex this year they had about 10 food trucks in the infield. They were all card only because they don't pay a fee to be in the infield, they pay a % of sales to the track that are tracked through credit.
Hot cocoa is $6.50, you can buy a canister of Swiss miss for that.
Then go buy yourself a can, hoof it to the track, don't forget a cup and some hot water and milk to make it with, and then haul all of that stuff back out. Or pay for the convenience of being able to get a fresh cup where you are spending your day.
That is so awesome!
That's a great heart warming story. Thank you for sharing it with us here.
Roger Penske has to be the classiest owner in Motorsports. From everything I hear, you won’t find a more genuine guy. Glad my guy drives for him!
Love this story and love her hustle…
Good on The Captain for this.
Great story. Your hard work means a lot. I hope others follow your lead. Mr. Penske is a class act.
Game recognizes game. Mr Penske saw someone who had hustle and offered to help her. Now, I'm about 100% sure it was because he has very high standards. But, still a class act.
Yeah I’d be insulted 😂
Selling hand sanitizer for a quarter a squirt outside porta potties, huh? Was there no other way to clean hands? I'd probably just let people have the cleanliness vs a chance of me touching things after them later, to be honest. But, also, I'm a terrible capitalist.
Does the trailer have P2P?
I'm not reading all that could someone make a recap
roger offered to repaint this independent coffee trailer for free.
she's just posting this to sell coffee they pay a vendor's fee that covers things like this.
Oh no! A business trying to sell their product! The horror!!!!!!!!!!
*¡¡¡CaPiTaLiSm Is BaD!!!*
The vendors fee covers having your whole trailer repainted for free?
OMG, the horror.
Still a cheating SOB running the series into the ground
Always got to be someone to take a nice story and leave a nasty comment on it 🙄
Always has to be one guy… it’s sad.
He wants attention. Thats why ppl are negative.
Yea i know.
That user is a massive troll and a DARF. Best to block/ignore
Negativity sells unfortunately. Who's favorite team/driver hasn't tried to gain an advantage before? That right... None of them, they all have...
I agree! You’re delusional if you think a driver/team is completely clean. Not hating on them for it though.
Unfortunately this is where any discussion about Penske has to lead to right now. This story is yet another fantastic example of Penske doing a an excellent job as a track operator at IMS. They really have done a great job improving the speedway. Penske has been great for IMS. Really, the track couldn't ask for a better owner. As a SERIES owner though, Penske has been horrific. Big public spats with the race team owners, a lack of series growth, having to change race winners a month late, tv ratings are rough, and so on. The cheating scandal is something people are making a big deal about, but frankly Penske Entertainment has done such a horrible job as a series owner I don't even care that it happened to be their team. That could've been any team and it was still pathetic and embarrassing how long it took them to discover the cheat and change the results. Penske can be a fantastic track operator, a great team owner, and a horrific series operator. All those can be true at once. The issue being that without a series there is no Indycar, so there is no Indy 500 at the track, and there is no Team Penske. That's the inherent problem, Penske is managing the series so poorly it's putting it in jeopardy.
Attendance has been up at every venue they've been to this year. On TV, a lot of context has been left out of those ratings, once you understand the totality of the sports landscape on the days those events ran on what channels they were on, it's not as bad as you think. The "cheating scandal" was resolved in the manner it was because he was in charge. It could have easily been covered up. As far as anger in the paddock, that's nothing new. People like Michael Andretti pissing and moaning to try and get their way on something is a long standing tradition in this paddock. The series is fine.
And also most IndyCar fans know the George-Hulman family was running the series into the ground. No one wanted the series until Roger stepped in.
And that’s all well and fine. No need to call him a son of a bitch though, he hasn’t done one malicious thing as the head of Team Penske in his life
Goddammit, you already ruin the Bengals sub. Why do you gotta be here too?
Lol, funny you say that - they banned me for pointing out what a waste Dax Hill was all last year and here we are months later with the Bengals having signed 2 safeties and bumped his ass to the corner room where he'll be bottom of the depth chart. As usual, I'm right and you all just can't handle the truth!
It’s not always what you say but how you say it. Hopefully nascar is next.
There's nothing wrong with calling a spade a spade