Pennzoil history at the Indianapolis ‘500’

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The Shell Oil Company’s outdoor display at the 2018 SEMA (Specialty Equipment Market Association) show in Las Vegas featured the #3 Pennzoil-sponsored Dallara IR-12 with the UAK (Universal Aero Kit) IndyCar as driven by Helio Castroneves in the 2018 Indianapolis 500-mile race.

Pennzoil, a division of Shell Oil since 2002, has a long history of involvement at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and IndyCar racing. The company claims to have sponsored the machines of Russell Snowberger and Wilbur Shaw during the nineteen thirties, but the earliest Pennzoil sponsorship the author is aware of at the Indianapolis ‘500’ dates back to 1951, when Pennzoil sponsored the Emil Deidt built front-wheel drive car owned by Howard Keck.

This well-funded effort owned by the Southern California oilman was considered a “super team” at the time as it combined a proven winning car design, a superstar driver, three-time Indianapolis ‘500’ race winner Mauri Rose, and superstar mechanics, the “Whiz Kids” Frank Coon and Jim Travers. The Deidt-built front-drive machine was a later version of the design which Rose had driven earlier for car owner Lou Moore. Moore’s twin Blue Crown Spark Plug front-drive machines dominated the 500-mile race between 1947 and 1950, with three victories and two sweeps of both first and second place.

After Rose’s Blue Crown Special broke a magneto strap and dropped out of the 1949 race with just eight laps to go, he angrily quit Moore’s team and was entered for the 1950 ‘500’ as the driver of Keck’s shiny black unsponsored machine replacing the 1948 and 1949 pilot Jimmy Jackson. Rose started the 1950 ‘500’ on the outside of the front row for the start, led the first nine laps, then led again on two occasions but ultimately finished in third place behind winner Johnnie Parsons and Bill Holland in a Blue Crown Spark Plug Special.

Mauri Rose poses with a can of Pennzoil in 1951

Photo courtesy of the IUPUI University Library

Center for Digital Studies

Indianapolis Motor Speedway Collection

In 1951, Rose who was 45 years on race day with over 5,000 miles of competition at the Speedway to his credit, was entered as the driver of the same sleek black machine but with addition of Pennzoil as the sponsor. Rose was the first driver out for 1951-time trials and wound up fifth fastest to start his fifteenth ‘500,’ but during the 1951 Memorial Day Classic, the car’s right rear wire wheel collapsed on his 126^th lap as Rose entered the fourth turn and the #16 Pennzoil Special slid into the infield, rolled over and came to rest in a drainage ditch.

Pennzoil returned to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in 1979 as the sponsor of the Jim Hall-owned Chaparral 2K designed by John Barnard which made use of the new “ground effects” technology that used the underside of the car to create downforce to hold the machine onto the racing surface.  In 1979 driver Al Unser, the defending champion battled his brother Bobby for the race lead during the first half of the race before the car retired with a broken transmission seal on lap 104.

Johnny Rutherford and his crew pose after qualifying for the 1980 Indy 500

JR's wife Betty (the team's scorer) on the sidepod and car owner Jim Hall in cowboy hat

Photo courtesy of the IUPUI University Library

Center for Digital Studies

Indianapolis Motor Speedway Collection

The updated Pennzoil Chaparral 2K-02 retuned to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in 1980 with a new driver, two-time Indianapolis champion Johnny Rutherford. Rutherford and the machine dubbed the “Yellow Submarine” won the pole position and dominated the race, as Johnny led seven times for a total of 118 laps, which included the final 21 laps. Rutherford would score four other victories during the controversial 1980 co-sanctioned season and was crowned the 1980 CART (Championship Auto Racing Teams) series champion. Rutherford continued to drive the Pennzoil Chaparral in 1981, but in 1982 the Hall team turned to a March 82C chassis.

Rick Mears enroute to victory in the 1988 Indianapolis 500 mile race

Photo courtesy of the IUPUI University Library

Center for Digital Studies

Indianapolis Motor Speedway Collection

Chaparral car owner Jim Hall at the end of the 1982 CART season so for 1983, the Pennzoil sponsorship moved to Penske Racing. Pennzoil was the primary sponsor of the car of Rick Mears the 1979 Indianapolis 500-mile race winner, a pairing which lasted through the 1990 season. The combination resulted in seven CART (Championship Auto Racing Teams) wins and two Indianapolis ‘500’ victories in 1984 and 1988.  In 1984, Rick started third, led a race-high 119 laps, which included the final 56 circuits. In 1988, Mears started from the pole position, after he set new one and four lap records and led the final 77 laps to capture his third ‘500’ title.

Teo Fabi 1993 Indianapolis 500 qualifying photo

Author's personal collection

In late 1990, Jim Hall returned to racing from retirement and Pennzoil moved its sponsorship to the new partnership known as Hall/VDS Racing.  From 1991 to 1993, the Pennzoil machine was driven by John Andretti who won his debut race for Hall/VDS. In 1993 Andretti was replaced by Teo Fabi at Hall/VDS Racing, and beginning with the 1994 season the team was known as Hall Racing as team partner brewery heir Count Rudy Van Der Straten, the VDS part of the team had died in late 1992.  Teo Fabi remained as the team’s driver through the 1994 season but in two seasons, Teo was unable to find the winner’s circle.  In 1995 and 1996, Brazilian Gil DeFerran carried the Pennzoil colors in CART for Jim Hall Racing and scored one race win each season.

With the cataclysmic 1996 split of American open-wheel racing, Pennzoil joined forces with Pagan Racing for partial sponsorship at the Indianapolis 500-mile race. After Jim Hall retired again at the end of the 1996 season, Pennzoil came on board for the full 1997 Indy Racing League (IRL) season with the team owned by Texas oilman Jack Pagan and his son Allan.   

At the end of the 1997 season, Pagan Racing crew chief John Barnes left to form his own team, with five partners, football player Jim Harbuagh, television producer Terry Lingner, Indianapolis car dealer Gary Pedigo, radio personality Mike Griffin, and Indianapolis politician Doug Boles.

The Pennzoil sponsorship followed Barnes to the new team known as Panther Racing, although the entries driven by Scott Goodyear in the 1998, 1999, and 2000 IRL seasons used a non-traditional yellow and black livery.  When Goodyear’s planned teammate for the 1999 Indianapolis ‘500,’ sprint car driver David Steele, was unable to compete due to lingering injuries, Pennzoil provided partial sponsorship to the already-qualified car driven by Tyce Carlson.

Sam Hornish Jr. at Indianapolis 2003

Author's personal collection

Although Goodyear respectively scored three victories in his three seasons with Panther/Pennzoil before he retired, it was his replacement, Sam Hornish Jr. that brought the Panther/Pennzoil team its greatest successes. Hornish won in his debut race with the team at Phoenix International Raceway in 2001, and notched a total of eleven IRL races wins and two IRL driver championship titles in his three seasons in the Pennzoil colors from 2001 to 2003. 

When Hornish moved to Penske Racing for the 2004 season, his seat in the Pennzoil Panther was taken over by 24-year old South African Tomas Scheckter. Over his two seasons with Panther/Pennzoil, Tomas, the son of 1979 Formula One world champion Jody Scheckter was often fast in qualifying but only scored one race win at Texas Motor Speedway where he out-dueled Hornish for the win by .0534 seconds.

Pennzoil remained on the sidelines of IndyCar race team sponsorship from 2006 to 2011, but returned in 2012 with Penske Racing and three-time Indianapolis ‘500’ champion Helio Castroneves as part of the Penske line-up of rotating sponsors. Castroneves carried the Pennzoil colors at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway for the ‘500’ in 2012, 2014, 2016 and 2018.    

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The #3 Dallara IR-12 seen at the 2018 SEMA show is powered by a DOHC Chevrolet Ilmor twin-turbocharged V-6 engine that displaces just 134 cubic inches, but produces up to 700 horsepower at the highest boost level for qualifying for the Indianapolis 500-mile race with Pennzoil Ultra Platinum motor oil in its dry sump oil tank.