Roger Penske Lowers The Boom On Indy 500 Cheating Scandal

INDIANAPOLIS – Roger Penske acted swiftly and decisively on the latest controversy surrounding his racing team at the Indianapolis 500 by dismissing the top three officials on Team Penske’s IndyCar team.

The team announced at 10:41 a.m. Eastern Time on Wednesday May 21 the departures of IndyCar Team President, Tim Cindric, IndyCar Managing Director, Ron Ruzewski and IndyCar General Manager Kyle Moyer from the organization.

Team Penske will have further announcements this week related to personnel and replacements for this weekend’s Indianapolis 500.”

“Nothing is more important than the integrity of our sport and our race teams,” Roger Penske said in a statement. “We have had organizational failures during the last two years, and we had to make necessary changes.

“I apologize to our fans, our partners and our organization for letting them down.”

Penske is in a difficult position as both the owner of the winningest team in Indianapolis 500 history with 20 wins in the biggest race and the world, and since 2019 the owner of IndyCar, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and the Indianapolis 500.

The latest controversy comes after IndyCar officials assessed additional penalties sending two-time and back-to-back winner Josef Newgarden and 2018 Indy 500 winner Will Power to the back of the 33-car grid.

The race strategist for Josef Newgarden on the No. 2 was Cindric. The race strategist for Power on the No. 12 was Ruzewski. Both were also suspended from the Indianapolis 500 in 2024 because of the “push-to-pass” scandal.

This is the second year in a row that Cindric and Ruzewski were suspended from the Indianapolis 500.

On Monday, IndyCar President Doug Boles spoke of the additional penalties and why it was important to the event.

He made the call to Penske on Monday morning to inform him of the penalties and said the 88-year-old Penske was “devastated.”

“The first thing I did this morning was call Mark Miles (Penske Entertainment CEO) Mark Miles,” Boles said Monday. “The two of us sat down and started thinking through what is the appropriate thing to make sure that we’re managing the integrity of the Indianapolis 500? Roger Penske was not involved in this other than to be told that there would be a penalty, and it would be a severe penalty coming his way. We did call Roger to let him know what the penalty was, and we called Tim Cindric, and we called Ron Ruzewski, the team strategist of those cars, to let them know what was coming.

“I’ve known Roger Penske for an awful long time, and I’ve gotten to know him really well since November 2019. I don’t think Roger Penske understands some of the things that might be going on.

“I get the optics challenge, and it’s definitely something we should think about. I mean, how do you manage the optics challenge? A lot of these challenges I think are — while they roll up to Roger at the end of the day, I think they are certainly below him. There are things that happen that don’t ever get to Roger.

“I can tell you that Roger Penske would not condone this. In fact, I had a chance to talk to Roger, and I can tell that this is devastating to him. Nothing means more to Roger Penske than the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and the Indianapolis 500. He certainly loves racing across the board. This is something that I think he’s going to have to address at some point in time.

“As far as the series goes, we are open to looking at wherever we are, but right now at this point in time we have a tech team that did their job yesterday. They found the attenuators. We stopped both of them, and I think we’ve appropriately resolved or at least appropriately addressed — maybe not resolved forever, but we’ve appropriately addressed this particular situation.”

Boles indicated the original penalties for modifying the rear attenuator was the protect the integrity of the world’s biggest race.

“The integrity of the Indianapolis 500 is paramount, and this violation of the INDYCAR rule against modification to this part and using it ‘as supplied’ is clear,” Boles said. “The penalty should be more than simply starting where the cars might have qualified anyway, if given the opportunity. The cars belong in the field as two of the fastest 33; however, starting on the tail of the field is the appropriate penalty in this instance.”

Scott McLaughlin’s car No. 3 did not attempt to qualify Sunday in the Top 12 because of an accident in the earlier afternoon’s practice. Upon review of the car, and INDYCAR impounding the No. 3 attenuator, INDYCAR found that the car was in fact using a legal and unmodified attenuator. Therefore, car No. 3 will start in the 10th spot – the final spot of those who had qualified to participate in the Top 12.

Additionally, both cars will forfeit Indianapolis 500 qualification points, and each entry was fined $100,000.

“The positive momentum around the NTT IndyCar Series and the Indianapolis 500 has been on a steep crescendo over the last several months, and we want it to be clear that our intent is to maintain that momentum and discourage teams from putting IndyCar in positions where it calls into the integrity of our officiating and the levelness of the playing field,” Boles said. “As we look to the remainder of the week and the race this weekend, we will do everything we can to make it clear that this is not only the best racing on the planet but racing where the best win under completely fair conditions.”