Penske Corporation has acquired Indianapolis Motor Speedway (IMS), the NTT IndyCar Series og IMS Productions.
IMS was built back in 1909 by Carl Fisher, who ran the track until 1927, with Eddie Rickenbacker as the new owner. Hulman & Company has owned the track since 1945, that founded the Indy Racing League in 1996, being a competitor to CART on the single-seater side of American motorsport.
Penske Corporation has previous owned other race tracks, buying Michigan International Speedway back in 1973. Penske has also been a promoter of several races, including the Detroit Grand Prix, where both NTT IndyCar Series and WeatherTech SportsCar Championship currently compete.
The goal is to keep running the track and the whole IMS organisation with the same historic spirit like before. But no doubt that the founder of Penske Corporation, Roger Penske, would like to see the track and the series develop, the way it usually happens when they get involved, no matter if it’s single-seaters, sportscars or NASCAR.
Photo: Indycar.com / Joe Skibinski
Penske Corporation has its base in Michigan, where things like car dealerships, truck sales and rentals, plus Ilmor Engineering is part of the company.
Team Penske started back in 1966 at the 24 Hours of Daytona, and has had some kind of connection to Indycar racing since 1968. The team wasn’t actually part of Indy Racing League (IRL) from the beginning, since he supported the CART series, which Roger was part-founder of in 1978. That all changed in 2001, where the team returned to the Indy 500, and made the full time switch to IRL from 2002 onwards.
Roger Penske Presidential received the Medal of Freedom just last week, for all his contributions to America and the American industry.
The deal has to be approved by the Government and other standard conditions, as we know from every other big acquisition.
