1980 Penske PC7

Roger Searle Penske is the most successful owner in the Indianapolis 500 with eighteen victories. Penske, himself, raced in two Formula One Grand Prix events, and won a NASCAR Pacific Coast Late Model race at Riverside in 1963, but never raced at the Indianapolis 500. Penske raced until 1965, when he retired as a driver, to concentrate on his first Chevrolet dealership in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

In 1966, the Penske Racing team made its debut at the 24 Hours of Daytona. The team's mechanic was Karl Kainhofer and the driver was Mark Donohue. The team's inaugural racing debut at the Indianapolis 500 was in 1969, winning that event in 1972 with driver Mark Donohue.

During the first eight years of Team Penske, they would prepare cars obtained from, or teaming with, manufacturers such as Eagle, Porsche, AMC, McLaren, Lola, and Chevrolet. Their level of preparation and attention to detail resulted in speed and reliability which was rewarded with many victories.

The Penske PC1 Formula One car was the first Penske Car PC to be built in Poole, England. It was completed near the close of the 1974 season and anchored aline of cars that would extend through the PC28 Indy Cars of 1999.

The first ground-effects Indy Car is generally noted as being Jim Halls Chaparral 2K wearing a design penned by John Barnard and driven in 1979 by Al Unser. The Penske PC7, however, was also on the gid that year from the first race of the season. The PC7 was closely related to its predecessor, the PC6, but with several noticeable modifications including the addition of side pods.

Four chassis were built for the Team to contest the 1979 season, followed by seven or eight more PC7s in the following 1980 and 1981 seasons. The racing career of the PC7 lasted much longer, as privateers were still racing with them at the 1983 Indy 500, although without success.

At its first race at Phoenix on March 11, 1979, Bobby Unser placed the Team Penske PC7 on the pole position. Unser finished the race in 5th position and Rick Mears placed 2nd in a second Team car after starting 5th. At that year's Indy 500, Unser drove the PC7, and Mears raced a PC6. Mears drove his car to pole position but the ground-effects cars showed their strength with the Al Unser Chaparral leading for 85 of the first 100 laps. Unser would lead the most laps of the race with 89 but fell off the pace while leading with 18 laps to go when his PC7 lost high gear and Bobby nursed it home in 5th.

Team Penske raced the PC7 chassis for the remainder of the season with Bobby Unser earning 7 pole positions and 6 wins. Despite this impressive performance, he lost a close championship battle with teammate Mears, who would score two additional victories and poles for the PC7. Mario Andretti joined the team for the California 500 and Team Penske swept the top three positions with the PC7 Cosworth combination.

During the 14-race season, the PC7 earned 9 victories and 8 pole positions. For the 1980 season, Penske offered the PC7 to privateers while they developed the PC9 for the start of the 1980 season.

by Daniel Vaughan | Dec 2021