MOORESVILLE, North Carolina – Deep in the heart of stock car country is home base for Team Penske, just outside of this bustling town located 25 miles north of Charlotte, North Carolina.
On a beautiful afternoon on Friday, May 3, the fan focus at Team Penske was on its NTT IndyCar Series team. It was a meet and greet with 2016 NTT IndyCar Series champion Simon Pagenaud and 2014 NTT IndyCar Series champion and defending INDYCAR Grand Prix and Indianapolis 500 winner Will Power.
Team Penske announced the event to fans on its Facebook page and Twitter account.
Stacy Yost of Chesterfield, South Carolina arrived at 11 a.m. for the 3 p.m. meet and greet The 45-year-old is a converted IndyCar Series fan.
“I actually switched days off with some friends so that I could go to this,” she told the NTT IndyCar Mobile App. “I wanted to make sure I could get in and see Will and Simon. I follow Will Power on Instagram, and he never fails to amuse. He’s hilarious, and he has a lot of skill on the track, too.
“I love Team Penske in general. I started out with NASCAR and the more I got to know Team Penske, the more I got to know the IMSA and IndyCar teams and I started watching them more and more. I have become fans of Will Power and Simon Pagenaud and Josef Newgarden.”
Yost said she was always a NASCAR fan but has moved over to IndyCar in the past three years.
“I always make sure to watch the IndyCar race,” Yost said. “If both are on at the same time, I will DVR the NASCAR race or split-screen it.
“I have a lot of friends from around this area that watch a lot of IndyCar races now. My dream is to eventually go to the Indy 500.”
It was not the first time Yost went to the shop, however.
“This is my Disney World,” Yost said. “It’s amazing. It’s absolutely awesome. The Fan Walk is awesome, and you get to see the drivers from time to time and the cars being built.
“To me, it’s Disney World.”
A larger than expected crowd of about 75 fans arrived for an informal question-and-answer session with Pagenaud and Power that lasted for 25 minutes. Afterward, the Team Penske drivers posed for photos and signed autographs with the fans.
Christina Farless, along with sons Ethan (13) and Evan (7), made the four-hour drive from their home in Jonesboro, Tennesee, to attend the event. They are pictured above.
“We just got into IndyCar in the last year because of the Penske Games,” Christina said of the team’s online video series pitting drivers against each other in unique competitions. “We started watching last year and have watched all the IndyCar races this year. They really enjoyed it. We are very big Team Penske fans all around now.
“We’ll have to find some IndyCar races to attend, now.”
Ethan likes Will Power because “they are funny and nice.”
Retirees Patricia Palmer and her husband Lawrence made the drive from outside Marietta, Ohio. They made the trip to North Carolina two days earlier and will attend the 103rd Indianapolis 500 on May 26.
“Our seats are coming off of Turn 4,” Lawrence told NTT INDYCAR Mobile.
“None of them are any nicer than the IndyCar guys are,” Patricia Palmer told NTT INDYCAR Mobile.
Nick Menist and his wife, Tiffany, of Charlotte were dressed in IndyCar apparel with Tiffany wearing a Will Power Team Verizon crew shirt. Her mother grew up in Indianapolis and attends the Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg every year.
“Every year at St. Pete, Will Power would win the pole and won the race a few times so I had to become a Will Power fan,” Tiffany said.
The Menists attended the Indy 500 last year with Tiffany’s family. It was Nick’s first Indy 500, and they watched Power drive to victory.
“It was intense,” Nick said. “Indy was ridiculous. It was great. We got our picture with Will and Josef at St. Pete this year.”
Nick and Tiffany are both into music and she plays drums, giving her something in common with Power. He is the IndyCar Series’ most noted drummer.
“Will is fast, he wins, he is intense, he is very serious, but can also be pretty goofy and he plays the drums,” Tiffany said.
Charlie Haywood, 18, of Mount Gilead, North Carolina, Andrew Pervere, 18 of Connecticut and Nicolas Dove, 18 of Elizabethton, North Carolina are college freshmen at nearby UNC-Charlotte. They saw the event on Facebook but come up to the shop about twice a month.
“I’m very much an IndyCar fan,” Haywood said. “It’s so much different than NASCAR and a different change of pace. I just like it the best.
“The big thing for me was a couple of years ago when they ran the Texas race and Graham Rahal beat James Hinchcliffe by a couple-thousandths of a second, that was (incredible).”
Elizabeth Morris is the Team Penske licensing manager and came up with the idea of the IndyCar meet and greet. It was the first time Team Penske did a fan event involving the IndyCar team.
Last May, the team had a “Breakfast with Blaney” featuring driver Dave Blaney and last fall a “Lunch with Logano” after Joey Logano won the NASCAR Cup Monster Energy Series championship for Team Penske.