Penske Racing Museum 2nd Floor INDY500 Winning Cars Model Display
Channel: Edmund Jenks
Date: 2018-02-16

Penske Racing Indianapolis 500 Statistics

Penske Racing has the most Indianapolis 500 victories of any team in auto-racing history with 16 victories. In 1972, Penske driver Gary Bettenhausen led the most laps but lost an engine with 24 laps to go. His teammate Mark Donohue led the waning laps en route to Penske's first Indianapolis 500 victory. In 1979, Penske driver Bobby Unser led the most laps of the Indianapolis 500 while teammate Rick Mears won the race, from the pole.

Penske's next 500 victory was one of the most controversial finishes in IndyCar history. Penske driver Unser won the pole position and led the most of the final 100 laps. On lap 140, Bobby Unser and former Penske driver Mario Andretti came out of the pits. Unser passed 11 cars under a yellow flag while Andretti passed 2 cars. Unser won the race, but was stripped of the victory the next morning in favor of Andretti. After a lengthy appeal, Unser was reinstated the victory and was instead fined $40,000 ($104,000 in today's money). Unser retired from racing after the season was over in the fall-out of the controversy.

Penske's next Indy 500 win was with Rick Mears in 1984. Mears and former Penske driver Tom Sneva battled for the lead in the final 100 laps but after Sneva dropped out with a broken CV joint, Mears led the final 40 laps unchallenged to win by 2-laps ahead of the field. The next year, first-year Penske driver Danny Sullivan led the final 61 laps en route to his first Indianapolis 500 victory after winning a 4-lap shootout with Mario Andretti. In 1987, Penske driver Danny Ongais got taken out of the race due to injuries and former Penske driver Al Unser was tabbed as a temporary replacement. Unser won the race.

1988 was one of the most dominating performances by Penske Racing in the history of the Indianapolis 500. Penske's team members, Sullivan, Unser and Mears qualified in the front row and proceeded to lead 192 of the race's 200 laps, 91 by Sullivan, 89 by Mears, and 12 by Unser. Mears won the race. In 1991, Mears won an 18-lap duel with Michael Andretti to win his 4th Indianapolis 500. Emerson Fittipaldi won the 500 in 1993 but angered American fans by drinking orange juice instead of the traditional milk.

In 1994, the Penske team, consisting of Al Unser Jr., Paul Tracy and Emerson Fittipaldi led 193 of the race's 200 laps, thanks to a new engine invented by Penske that went up to 1000 horsepower. The engine was later banned, which resulted in Penske Racing not qualifying a single car in the 1995 Indianapolis 500.

Due to the open-wheel split, Penske did not field a car at the Indianapolis 500 from 1996-2000. In 2001, Penske Racing crossed a picket-line by fielding the team in the 500, consisting of rookie Hélio Castroneves and Gil de Ferran. The duo proceeded to lead the most laps, en route to the victory, giving Penske Racing a 1-2 finish, the first time in the team's history. In a post-race interview, Roger Penske said that after the heartbreak in 1995, the win was the biggest of all his Indy 500 wins.

In 2002, Castroneves barely beat Paul Tracy to win his second consecutive Indy 500. Controversy overshadowed the race when video tapes appeared to have shown that Tracy was ahead of Castroneves at the moment of a final-lap caution. After a lengthy appeal, Castroneves' win was upheld on July 2. In 2003, Gil de Ferran won his first 500 and then retired when the season was over. Penske Racing has since proceeded to win the 500 in 2006, 2009, and 2015.
[ht: Wikipedia]

At the 2nd floor display, a full description of each of the cars, driver, and year this driver and car won the Indianapolis 500 mile endurance race competition event.

... notes from The EDJE