Ex-Penske chief Cindric taking time to ponder opportunities in and out of motorsports

Former Team Penske president Tim Cindric is doing well, keeping busy and open to new opportunities in motor racing and, possibly, outside of it.

After 30-plus years of non-stop action running the biggest racing programs for Bobby Rahal and Roger Penske, which came to an end in May when he and two other team leaders were fired by Penske, Cindric’s treated the unanticipated break as a blessing.

“You know, I’ve just been catching up on life,” Cindric told RACER. “I've had some interesting inquiries within and outside of motorsport, but I haven't committed anything yet to speak of. It’s just the way it is. There's certainly more to life than motorsport. I'm finding out that's all I've done all my life. But I'm open minded to interesting inquiries within and outside of motorsport.”

Cindric ran Rahal’s CART IndyCar Series team before moving across to lead Penske’s CART program and quickly ascended to the top of the organization which competed in NASCAR, switched from CART to the Indy Racing League, and was a central figure in building the new Penske Porsche RS Spyder LMP2 effort that debuted in 2005.

Decades of overseeing multiple racing programs, which added international expansions into Australian Supercars with DJR Team Penske for many years before it was replaced by Porsche Penske Motorsport’s Porsche 963 WEC Hypercar effort, drove Cindric to a point of exhaustion by the end of 2024.

He’d approached Penske with the intent to step down altogether, but a compromise was found where pulling back from the all-encompassing duties to limit his focus on running Penske’s IndyCar program, along with greater involvement from colleagues in handling day-to-day responsibilities, was a key adjustment for Cindric in 2025.

Although his departure from Team Penske came as a shock, the benefit of being untethered from a lifetime of manic hours and constant travel was evident in Cindric’s voice.

His son, NASCAR driver Austin Cindric, is Down Under racing in the Supercars series at the moment. In years past, Tim would have gotten on a plane and made yet another racing-related trip, but rather than travel overseas, he opted to stay local and enjoy Thanksgiving with the rest of his extended family in Ohio.

Downshifting a few gears, being still, or choosing to be as busy as he prefers, has been a gift over the last six months.

“You know, I have a few other business interests that occupy some of my time, but they're really nothing worth talking about,” he said. “So, it's not a whole lot going on as far as the motorsport world's concerned. Like I said, I’m open to it, but I’ll probably be pretty selective to what I get myself into next.”