Cindric discusses damage due to fire on Team Penske transporter
On the amount of damage: “It really comes down to the amount of work that has to be done. The material things aren’t easy and everybody has to write checks, but the difficult part is the amount of time and effort that goes into the customization of the race cars and the trailer and the pit equipment and that type of thing. That’s where the biggest loss really is – it’s time. From a financial perspective it’s never easy and never fun, but you run a similar risk every weekend when you crash a race car."
“The transporter is about $350,000 or $400,000 along with the contents. Obviously you have two race cars. At the end of the day you can say they’re $400,000, you can say they’re $600,000, but who knows. There are certain parts of the car that are going to be salvageable and certain parts that aren’t. Total estimate is probably more than one (million dollars) and less than three (million dollars)."
On what was salvaged: “What we brought here today are very small things, very unique tools, things you can’t buy, I’ll put it that way. Customization-type things. Things that will come tomorrow on the straight truck are basically the things that we see are somewhat unscathed and easily utilized."
On whether the back-up cars will be as good as the primary cars: “I’m confident that with the quality of our people anytime we bring a backup car to the racetrack, that backup car should be prepared as if it’s going to become a race car, otherwise we shouldn’t really have it here at the level we participate at. The question will really be, if we need to go to a back-up car, at what state the back-up car is going to be in for the weekend."
On whether either driver will be at a disadvantage: “It’s our goal to be sure that they’re not. But that chance is probably more so than what it would be on a different given weekend."
On Roger Penske’s response: “Roger goes right into the technical whys and wherefores of how does that happen. What happened? What’s the extent of the damage? The first question he asked was if everybody is OK, but beyond that it becomes more of a methodical process. With Roger, there’s usually not a lot of emotions on anything. Roger’s pretty much to the point with what the process is going to be and how are we going to be sure that this doesn’t affect the outcome of Sunday’s race. That’s the game."
On doing without: “I’ve called races before where we basically just had a computer and a radio, so the things you get used to and what’s necessary and what’s a luxury are kind of two different things. You kind of go back to your roots a little bit and say, ‘OK, it’s not all that bad.’"