MOORESVILLE, N.C. – It was October 30, 1999 at what was then called California Speedway when CART team owner Roger Penske introduced the man that was going to lead Team Penske back to prominence. By 1999, the once-fabled Penske operation had dropped back in the CART grid with an engine/chassis/tire combination that was simply uncompetitive.

That day before the 1999 Marlboro 500, Penske introduced Tim Cindric, the team manager at what was then called Team Rahal, as the first-ever president of Team Penske.

“It was, ‘Who is that guy and why?’” Cindric recalled to NTT INDYCAR Mobile. “Honestly, at that point in my career, I had been part of two IndyCar wins – both at Laguna Seca with Bryan Herta. I had done race strategy for four or five years. We were competitive for what we had, but it wasn’t like he was hiring a known quantity that was going to turn the world around.

“My biggest question was, ‘Why me?’ My question was the same as a lot of people. ‘Why me?’ I didn’t really understand.”

Twenty years later, it’s obvious the impact Cindric has had on not only restoring Team Penske to prominence but helping to guide it to an even greater degree of excellence.

Since Cindric became president of Team Penske, the team has won eight of the team’s record 18 Indianapolis 500 victories, is on the verge of a seventh NTT IndyCar Series championship since 1999, two NASCAR Monster Energy Cup Series championships, one NASCAR Xfinity Series championship, two Daytona 500 wins, an Australian Supercars championship and the 2006 American Le Mans Series LMP2 championship.

In addition to those outstanding achievements, Cindric has called the race strategy for Will Power when Power won the 2014 NTT IndyCar Series championship and for Josef Newgarden’s 2017 IndyCar Series title.

Cindric remains Newgarden’s race strategist as the driver enters the Sept. 22 season finale at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca with a 41-point lead over Andretti Autosport’s Alexander Rossi and a 42-point lead over Team Penske driver Simon Pagenaud.

“It’s the result of having a lot of good people in a lot of places,” Cindric said. “I think the group we have now, this group will continue to succeed with or without me. It’s that strong.

“It’s nonstop. It’s never enough. The results are never enough. The leaders of these different groups, if you told anybody I would be here for 20 years, up until that point in time, nobody would be in that position for that long. It’s analogous to a lot of other sports. Some coaches are in and out and some are consistent, but it all has to do with finding the right players.

“In the NCAA, the coaches that have been there and are synonymous with that team have had ups and downs and different levels of success, but at the same time there is a constant there before. Taking the legacy that was here before and building on it, has always been the goal, always been the challenge.”

Being a part of Team Penske, however, is more than winning.

“Our No. 1 responsibility is how you represent the Penske brand and winning races is secondary to that,” Cindric said. “As long as you keep those two things straight, you are in a good place.

“I guess I don’t know anything different any more. It seems normal, but there will probably be a day when you realize it’s not normal to have all of those expectations and pressures on yourself.”

Team Penske's Tim Cindric

When Penske first approached Cindric about the position in 1999, the former basketball star at Pike High School in Indianapolis and Rose-Hulman University in Terre Haute, Ind., wasn’t sure working for the most successful team owner in IndyCar history was the right thing for him to do at that time in his career.

“But Megan convinced me,” Cindric said, referring to his wife. “My father (Carl) had an opportunity to work for Roger and he never did, and he regretted that. He was loyal to where he was, and he didn’t regret that part. He saw others that went to work for him that convinced him he could have done that.

“Megan convinced me, ‘You need to go try this. You might not get this opportunity again. If it doesn’t work out, what have you lost?’”

Cindric accepted the position, but really didn’t understand why Penske would give him a job with so much responsibility. After all, the highest position he held at Rahal was team manager.

“I kept asking Roger, ‘I’m not replacing anybody. You are putting me above everybody, I don’t understand,’” Cindric said. “Roger said, ‘You won’t understand until you get there. You just need to go do your job.’

“After I got there, I understood.

“After the first week I was there, I went upstairs, and I didn’t know Tom German. He was the technical director. He said to me, ‘Can I ask you a question?’ I said, ‘What’s that?’ He said, ‘Why do we need a president?’

“I said, ‘Tom, that’s a great question because I don’t know either. That’s my biggest question, too. But what I can tell you is I think the guy we goth work for is very smart, so that’s probably a good question for him. We’ll probably get the answer here shortly.

“Even Clive Howell, the first day here, we left a meeting in the conference room and I said to him, ‘Hey, Clive. I don’t know you very well. I’m not here to take your job. I’m here to do whatever it is I can do to help this group. I’m not sure what it is yet.’ He said, ‘We’ll see’ and he walked off.

“Fast forward a couple of months later, we were testing at Sebring and then had to test at Homestead. He and I are driving along in a car after the Sebring test and he said, ‘I want to tell you something. I know why you are here now.’”

Cindric was hired because Penske needed someone from outside the organization to pull things together. Prior to that, Team Penske built its own chassis and engines, but in the new world of CART, it was about to move away from Penske Cars to Reynard and from Mercedes-Benz to Honda.

“The era of all of that was changing,” Cindric said. “They didn’t have anyone that understood how to deal with Honda, how to deal with Reynard, how that game worked. They had not had anybody before that Roger had handed the keys to. He was handing me the keys. I was a partner in the team. From that point forward, I had equity in the team as far as an ownership position. Nobody had that in the IndyCar world before.

“I always believe that is Roger’s stage. I’m not there to have my name next to his. It’s his stage, but he had handed me the keys and the trust to run with it and nobody else had that opportunity. With that opportunity came ways in which you can operate without having to wait on his schedule for you to get an answer for something.

“Roger is the type of guy who will give you the benefit of the doubt early on. As long as you are right and as long as you are getting results, he will continue to give you that until a point in time where he starts questioning the results and your judgement, he will get very involved and eventually go to somebody else.”

During the last 20 years of excellence, Cindric has formed an incredible alliance with Penske, who is more than just his boss. Carl Cindric will always be Tim Cindric’s father, but Roger Penske has had a profound impact on Cindric’s life.

“It’s three people to me, it’s not one person,” Cindric said of Penske. “There are three different Roger Penskes in my mind.

“There is ‘Mr. Penske, the billionaire.’ He’s one of the top business leaders in the country. That’s Mr. Penske when I’m in his board meetings and in his environment. That’s who you are talking to and how you address him. You know where to be and when to be.

“There is ‘Roger Penske, my boss.’ The car owner I’ve watched since I was a kid, the owner of the team I’ve always wanted to work for, the guy you are working side-by-side with. He’s my racing boss.

“Then, there is ‘RP.’ RP is your friend, your confidante. He’s the one you can say anything to, and you can have a lot of fun with. He has a great sense of humor and he is a lot of things people don’t realize in the right environment with the right audience. That’s the way the world works.

“For me, you can’t get confused which one of those three. He’s a mentor in many ways, but he’s very demanding.

“There is not anybody that is going to be around without results and without the right approach.”

Twenty years ago, Penske saw the “right approach” in Cindric. Ironically, it took Cindric a few years after that to recognize it in himself.

INDYCAR concludes its 17-race season with the Firestone Grand Prix of Monterey on Sunday, Sept. 22. Television coverage will begin on NBC at 2:30 p.m. ET (11:30 a.m. PT local) with the green flag scheduled for 3:15 p.m. (12:15 p.m. local). Live radio broadcasts will be available on the Advance Auto Parts INDYCAR Radio Network and SiriusXM Satellite Radio (XM 205, Sirius 98, Internet/App 970).