MOORESVILLE, North Carolina – When Verizon IndyCar Series teams get together for a test session with other teams crew members often get asked, “So what did you do in the offseason?”

For several members at Team Penske, their offseason included one month in Australia working with DJR Team Penske’s V8 SuperCar team with driver Marcos Ambrose.

“It was fun and a lot of work but nothing we hadn’t done before – just hadn’t done it in a long time,” said IndyCar mechanic Carlos Plaza, the inside front tire changers for Will Power. “It was interesting to see how another race series works but it was a lot of work. A lot, a lot of work.”

Clay Turner was one of the five Team Penske crewmembers that made the trip to Australia last November. Turner and Plaza were the IndyCar members. Two more crewmen from Team Penske’s NASCAR Sprint Cup team went along with one design engineer.

For Turner – the outside rear tire changer for driver Juan Pablo Montoya in IndyCar -- the trip to Australia also meant time away from his wife.

“It was tough being away but it was no different for us being away for the Indy 500,” Turner said. “Every year we are gone 25 days or more for Indy. The only difference is most of our wives or girlfriends will come out for the 500 on race weekend. We are gone that long at Indy but we are in the same time zone. So we had to get up in the morning and the wife would be going to bed so the conversations were much shorter.

“It was a lot of work; it was fun. I equate it to prepping for the 24 Hours of Daytona. It’s the same workload. Gelling with another team was great. It was cool to see another influence of how things are done in another country and how they work.”

Team Penske joined forces with Dick Johnson Racing – the most successful team in Australia V8 SuperCar racing – to create DJR Team Penske. Australian racing hero Ambrose completed a successful tour in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series to return to his homeland to compete in the series that made him famous.

It was interesting times for the Team Penske IndyCar crewmembers that work with the full-time Australian crew as the two joined forces and meld the two ideas form the different operations.

“At first it was a little hesitant but then they quickly warmed up to us and realized we were just there to help them,” Plaza said. “After that it was like we had been working with them for a while and it was no big deal.”

Turner said the members of Team Penske stood back to earn the trust of their Australian counterparts.

“We gelled together and had one goal – to get the car to the track,” Turner said. “Whatever it took whether it was sweeping the floor, loading the truck or working on the car we were there to help them.

“We were working until 7, 8 or 9 every night. The first few days we were trying to get used to the time difference.”

None of the crewmembers had been to Australia before so they took in the sights such as the Harbor and the Opera House in Sydney.

“We saw the signs for Toowoomba (Will Power’s hometown) but we didn’t make it over there,” Turner said. “The two NASCAR guys went surfing and Carlos and I went hiking.”

They were in Australia from November 18 to December 8 and that meant Thanksgiving Day was spent at a test at Queensland Raceway. They bought some rotisserie chickens and beef brisket at a local restaurant and had their Thanksgiving dinner Australian style.

The V8 Super Car Series runs from February to the first week of December but compete in rounds once a month with three races during a race “round.”