The 2025 Penske Rant Continued

Once again, I'd love to be writing about literally anything else, but I can't help myself. A lot has happened over the past couple of days, and I'd like to make some clarifications and additions that I didn't put into my initial post.

The first development is that this is a long-standing issue. Josef Newgarden's 2024 Indy 500 winning car, displayed in the museum at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, was spotted sporting the modified attenuator. Additionally, Scott McLaughlin's pole winning car also appears to have been modified.

For reference, the current iteration of the IndyCar rear attenuator was first revealed in 2023, but was not used in the 2023 Indy 500. 2024 was the first year that the current attenuator was used at IMS. Motorsport.com has an article that goes into the history of the attenuator in-depth if you want to know more.

This whole situation calls into question IndyCar's technical inspection process. How could this be systematically missed in every inspection over the course of an entire season, especially on two cars that should have been under the most scrutiny? If something like this was missed for so long, what else wasn't noticed?

I didn't mention my theories about why Penske modified the attenuators in my initial post, and I should have. I believe this was a case of ignorance rather than willful cheating. I suspect an engineer saw the seam in the attenuator and made the decision to fill it to see if they could pick up a hundredth or two. I've also seen people speculating that it was purely an aesthetic choice. Regardless of the reason, I don't think anyone in the Penske organization had any idea what they were doing was against the rules.

Regardless of intent, like I said in the first post, Penske's unique position as the owner of both the series and one of its premier teams means he has to be above reproach. This means the rule book needs to be enforced more strictly with his team, and the penalties need to be harsher. While it might seem unfair or like some kind of a double standard, that's the position he put himself in when he bought the IndyCar Series. Roger himself admitted in an interview that the optics of the situation weren't good, and the series has to overreact to every violation in order to swing those optics back in the right direction.

The second bombshell was Penske announcing the firings of Managing Director Ron Ruzewski, General Manager Kyle Moyer, and, most notable, Team President Tim Cindric.

Roger Penske didn't become as successful as he is by being stupid. He knows that these are all very skilled executives who will be able to find a place in another motorsports team. He's weighed the cost and determined that their loss is acceptable for the level of damage control that he'll gain. With that said, a small part of me can't help but think that this decision is at least a tiny bit motivated by outrage at the situation his team finds itself in leading up to the greatest spectacle in racing.

I had considered this specific matter closed after the grid penalties on Monday, so nothing's changed on that front for me. However, my final conclusion remains the same. Perception equals reality. While there are people who are satisfied with this conclusion and ready to move on, there are also plenty of people who will continue to doubt the credibility of IndyCar's officials. It's time for Roger Penske to sell the series. The conflict of interest remains clear, and it's not healthy to have people questioning every officiating decision IndyCar makes.