Sunday's victory was Penske's 11th at Indy, a remarkable feat made more im pressive because it has involved seven different drivers. The man behind the winning wheel Sunday was the rambunctious Brazilian rookie, Helio Castroneves, who celebrated his triumph by scaling the fence in front of the grandstand and dousing himself with the ceremonial milk. Yet a slightly quicker pit stop could have made a winner of another Penske prote ge, runner-up Gil de Ferran. Note that Andretti did not speak of specific drivers, but of the collective power of Penske's production line. The star of Penske's system is not the guy with his foot on the gas, but the system itself.
Drivers tend to be transient, like tires.
He gives you everything, but you better deliver. That's the way it is. That's the way it should be all the time. It isn't that way in most places because few of Penske's rivals have the financial resources or the organizational skill to operate as his equals. Penske said his 1-2 finish ranked close to the top of his career achievements, but his glee did not give way to gloating.