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Penske and Donohue were talking about bringing on a mechanic or two to help expand the team and Woodard’s unexpected visit came at the perfect time. He officially joined the team a few days later.

Don Cox, Earl McMullen and Karl Kainhofer at the Penske Racing shop.

Shortly after Woodard came aboard, Earl McMullen joined the team and then Chuck Cantwell and a few months later Don Cox joined on and the nucleus of the crew started to take shape.

“I knew Mark (Donohue) from Trans Am competition and I got to know a few of the (Penske) guys from seeing them at races,” said Cantwell, who worked on Carroll Shelby’s Trans Am Series team before joining Penske Racing and eventually becoming the team’s general manager. “When I started with the team, we had one desk in the (Newtown Square) shop, which Mark and I shared, and we had a pay phone with a dish full of dimes to make calls. That’s how Roger would reach us. He would call on that pay phone.”

At the end of the 1969 season, which culminated with a Trans Am Series championship for Donohue – the third consecutive year that ended with a title for the team – Penske Racing made the transition from running Chevrolet Camaros to AMC Javelins in Trans Am competition. The small crew put in a lot of hours and effort to adapt to the new car and get the program competitive. The transition also helped the team continue to grow as the investment by AMC in the program allowed for some modest expansion.

The small house that became the team office in front of the Penske Racing shop in Newtown Square, Penn.

“There was a small house that was in front of the race shop that was being leased out to someone when I started,” said Cantwell. “By the end of 1969 we were able to get that house and we turned it into an office. We hired a receptionist, we got a couple more desks and we got a regular phone system. But it was still a pretty lean operation.”

The team continued to expand its programs to different disciplines. “We had the sports car endurance races, the Trans Am team and Karl (Kainhofer) continued to build the Indy car program,” added Cantwell. “We had a pretty busy shop, especially for the amount of people that we had.”

The team’s passion for racing and a lot of hard work and long hours added up to more victories for Penske Racing as the seeds of success were being sewn. While the early crew members sometimes worked around the clock at the race shop, they drew their inspiration from the two team leaders. Both Penske and Donohue set the standard for dedication and a relentless drive to compete and win.

“We were just a bunch of guys that loved going racing but Mark and Roger were definitely the spark plugs of the whole thing,” said Cox. “It didn’t take long once you got to the team to realize that both of those guys were just different.”

Donohue’s work ethic and commitment were legendary. The former mechanical engineer from Brown University turned championship race car driver had been known to work on a car’s setup all night and then drive it to the track and race it the next day.

“Mark was right there with us every second,” said Woodard, who served as the iconic driver’s crew chief for many years. “And Roger would routinely work 20-hour days and need very little sleep. He was always sharp as a tack and he never forgot a thing. Guys like that don’t come down the road very often.”

Mark Donohue with the Penske team and the No. 66 Sunoco McLaren in 1971.

As the team continued to produce race wins and series championships, the foundation for North America’s most successful racing team began to take hold. When the team won its first Indianapolis 500 in 1972 with Donohue and then dismantled the Can-Am competition with the powerful Porsche 917/30 in 1973 that eventually led to the series shutting its doors, Team Penske was well on its way to racing prominence.

Though the early Penske crew never would have known the sustained excellence that the team would go on to achieve, they also realized that anything was possible with “The Captain” leading the way.

“We never had a doubt that Roger was going to make things better, no matter what we did as a team,” said Cantwell. “Everyone was just so driven to do well and meet Roger’s standards. I guess over the years the team has done a pretty good job of doing that.”