The Sheer Force of Will Power

by David Malsher

  But he’s still got a front-row seat to see his teammate return to pit lane. He puzzles about it for a lap, then asks over the radio. Penalty, replies Cindric: Helio’s down in fourteenth and is lapped. Cindric, Faustino and co. don’t want Will to back off completely but, aware of the newly installed handling problem, they don’t want him to stress or push too hard. And so from fourth, Power drops off the leaders’ pace, starts backing off the throttle into corners, and gives up five positions over the remaining laps. Whenever a car comes past, he’s careful to move down or up a lane to give himself some clean, downforce-heavy air.

  A lap after he cedes eighth place to Munoz, he gets the “five laps to go” call from Cindric. “Copy,” replies Will in a voice that trembles from the bumps on the track and the lump in his throat. He’s not an arrogant man, but even he can start to believe now, with just ten miles left. Yet he can’t afford to relax the tension that has been busting his forearms out of his sleeves and clamping his hands to the steering wheel so hard that they’re numb. It’s not worth the risk of changing anything now until it’s over.

  Then suddenly it’s Lap 250, the final lap, and as Verizon Team Penske Dallara-Chevrolet No. 12 comes out of the final turn, Will hears Cindric’s voice, languid in tone but delivering the words with real emphasis.

  “That’s it. Great job. It’s all yours. It’s all yours.”

  They’re the words Will has been waiting to hear for more than two-and-a-half-hours. Way more, in fact: think all day, all week, all month and all season long.

  Or think a decade and a half. Which is why, five seconds after Tim’s message, TV viewers are hearing Will sob for a couple of seconds. Finally, he squeezes out a heartfelt “Thank you sooo much.”

  Up in the NBC Sports Network booth, commentator Leigh Diffey says, “I wasn’t sure if that was tears . . .” but color commentator Paul Tracy – a man who had to wait more than a dozen years from his first Indy car ride to finally nail a title, and broke down when his dream was fulfilled – cuts in. He says quietly, “Oh, that was tears all right. Hundred per cent.”

  As Power performs donuts and burnouts at pit-in, way up at the other end of pit lane, his team is a blur of high-fives and hugs. Cindric’s on TV trying unsuccessfully to suppress his bubbling excitement, Penske Corporation’s senior veep Bud Denker looks as elated as it’s possible for a permanently composed guy to ever be. And, perhaps surprisingly, there aren’t tears among the Cannon– Power clan, just excitement, relief, and smiles that can be seen from outer space. Then suddenly Roger Penske is there, having consoled gracious championship runner-up, Helio Castroneves. There are almost too many people who want to shake RP’s hand, and too many he needs to shake hands with.

  Meanwhile, the man of the moment has pulled up in front of the photographers who’ve gathered in near the stage where the Astor Cup will be presented to the new champion. On TV, Paul Tracy delivers a succinct testimonial: “When Will first showed up on the Indy car scene while I was still racing, I was blown away by how naturally talented he was, how fast he is. I’ve always been one of his biggest fans, he knows that. I’ve told him, ‘You’re the fastest guy I’ve ever come across in my career.’”

  Will’s pretty slow to emerge from the racecar on this occasion, hampered by the enormity of the situation, his thoughts cramming his mind, and the congratulations of those around him, which don’t yet include his nearest and dearest. As he starts unbuckling his helmet, Will catches sight of a friend standing behind the photographers, raising his fist in salute, and he responds in kind, then raps on his helmet and closes his eyes tight in a “@#$%, I’ve really done it!” moment. The cockpit surround comes off, the helmet comes off, the Firestone hat goes on, and the 2014 Verizon IndyCar Series champion slides up and out of the car, pausing in a crouch on the sidepod to clench his fist and close his eyes again – another “I’ve really done it” moment.

  Finally he stands up on the sidepod, wobbles, makes eye contact with Marty Snider from NBCSN waiting to interview him, closes his eyes again, but this time with a look of sheer exhaustion. Towards the end of the interview that follows, he apologizes – “I want to be more excited but I’m just so drained” – and then lays it all out for the viewers, admits to the tension and stress and problems sleeping for the last fourteen days. He feels sorry for Liz, he says. And then the smile through the fatigue is genuine. The interview couldn’t be more different from the one at the start of the race, which now seems like a lifetime ago.

  Finally, Will’s family and many of the crew get down to the right end of pit lane, and thankfully there are plenty of cameras around to capture the moment when Liz is reunited with her champion husband. Somehow the pair of them manage to shut out the blur and noise of wellwishers to create a touchingly private moment in a sea of humanity. Then it’s Marg’s and Kathy’s turn to deliver their hugs of congratulations to their son and son-in-law respectively, while Liz’s brothers Billy and Matt and others crowd around, wearing ear-to-ear smiles.

  While the top three from the race – Kanaan, Dixon and Carpenter – perform the traditional post-race ritual of celebration and interviews, Will has a chance to catch up with grinning Penske team members, and suddenly the air of weary vulnerability is gone. He looks wide awake once more, just in time for things to become more formal: the stage is set, and the Astor Cup – first awarded ninety-nine years earlier – sits on a plinth and gleams under the artificial light.

  Will comes on stage with his home country’s flag, and the interviewer eventually asks the appropriate question. “Yup, I’m proud to represent Australia and also proud to represent Toowoomba, my home town,” Will declares to the world. Then The Captain, his team boss, joins him on stage and helps hold the flag with the first-ever Indy car champion from Australia. Shortly thereafter, a rightly proud Jim Campbell of Chevrolet, Lowell McAdam of Verizon and Mark Miles from IndyCar hit the stage.

  Liz passes Will her phone to take a selfie with the trophy and it takes him a good half a minute to figure out how to get both the silverware and himself in the shot. More interviews, more posing with the team. Hugs with Brian McEnnerney, the wheelchair-bound lad who may just be his biggest fan in America and who he took on hot laps of Sonoma Raceway in a Cadillac CTS-V just a couple of weeks earlier. There are phone calls of congratulations, phone interviews with Australian radio and TV channels. Will videobombs a TV interview with Liz and Marg. And he’s still not yet even gone to the press conference to meet the media.

  Two hours later, obligations completed, he’s still at the track, but now at Penske hospitality. He’s in civvies, he’s eaten (always a booster for Will), he’s on his second or third can of Miller Lite (the first alcohol he’s allowed himself all year) and listening to 1990s hip-hop. He looks genuinely serene. At last. For a man who loves his sleep as much as his food, on any other night, in any other circumstance, this would all be a little too much. Right now, though, he wouldn’t have it any other way.

  Chapter 21

  Onward and upward

  The next forty-eight hours were a blizzard of awards and speeches and interviews for TV, radio, websites and magazines. Then it was off to New York City with Elizabeth for an appearance on The Late Show with David Letterman – who co-owns an IndyCar team with three-time champion Bobby Rahal and Mike Lanigan – and a chance to go courtside for the US Open tennis championship. For a while, Will and Liz lived it up and got back to normal sleep patterns. At least now, whenever Will felt tired, it was from natural relaxation, rather than fatigue he’d brought on by worry or anticipation. And, just as he’d expected, it did feel good to be king.

  “Except that only lasted about a week!” says Elizabeth. “Will likes to be quite busy, and he’s just not big on self-congratulation. To him, winning the championship was a relief more than an excitement – you saw that after the race in Fontana. He’d finally achieved something that he’d questioned himself about in the past, but which he knew he had the talent to do. So after that, if he talked about the 20
14 season with Tim [Cindric] or Dave [Faustino] or whoever, it was only as part of bigger conversations about the next season. That’s the kind of thing that really gets Will interested – what happens next.”

  “Well, yeah, and that’s what I’d forced myself to do all year,” says Will. “With the races pretty much coming week after week, we didn’t have much chance to look back at the one just gone because we were so focused on the one ahead. Well, that’s how I felt at the end of the season, too – let’s get on with 2015 already! – and so 2014 was already history.”

  Power’s fans within the industry could be forgiven for not moving on quite so quickly, and instead revel a little longer in his long-awaited title glory. But Billy Vincent, his crew chief through those three years of finishing runner-up, 2010–12, points out that it was this relentless work ethic and basic impatience from his driver that also sowed the seeds of his success.

  “Even in 2009, after running his car in that part-time Penske campaign, I was confident Will would recover from his broken back and be ready to take on the world when the No. 12 entry went full-time,” says Vincent. “He was so well prepared for 2010, it was almost like that Sonoma accident didn’t happen. And that’s actually what really shone through those three seasons we were together. Will’s just so into every aspect of racing that he never allows himself to take it easy. He’s chomping at the bit to get back in a car and drive it to the limit and if he’s not feeling that way, he’d never let you know about it.”

  Vincent also saw first-hand the evolution of Power through those back-to-back-to-back seasons of proving himself as the fastest driver, winning the most battles but then ultimately losing the wars.

  “In 2010, Will was all about, ‘Man, I’ve got to perform, I’ve got to prove to Roger Penske that he did the right thing by making the third car a full-time entry.’ And it got to a stage where he always found something to worry about whenever he wasn’t in the car. Inside the cockpit, helmet on, he shut all that out and was a total badass, but through 2011 and 2012 the pressure did go up. It wasn’t about him wanting to win it for himself – he was desperate to win it for Roger, and I think he worried too much about what other people were doing. I kept trying to tell him, ‘Will, don’t worry what the rest of us are up to. Just do what you do best in the car.’

  “Well, I left Penske for a while [for a non-racing job],” Vincent continues, “and so I’d only see Will occasionally when I’d go to the races. And, finally, in 2014, I saw the relaxed Will Power, the guy who was just driving the hell out of the car. He’d tell me how much fun he was having, he’d describe the racing as awesome, he looked chilled. He wasn’t doing the math about the championship points. He was just doing the best he could at each race. And I’m sure that was one of the keys to him finally getting the job done.”

  Okay, so, one last time in one hundred words: what would be the Will Power summary of his championship season?

  “Hmmm . . . I loved the wins – bit pissed off that we didn’t get more than three, but no one else did either. That’s what is so great about IndyCar, isn’t it? Eleven winners in eighteen races. So you’ve got to play the circumstances as they come, make chances come your way and then take them, because you don’t get many. But I’m also proud that we finished every race and completed every lap but one – I’ve never had a finishing record like that before. And winning at Milwaukee felt as good as dropping the ball at Sonoma felt bad.”

  Matt Jonsson, Vincent’s replacement as Power’s crew chief since the start of 2013, smiles at Will’s annoyance that he didn’t win more than three races in his title year.

  “Will has had to accept that IndyCar is no longer about just the top teams winning,” he says. “Almost every team has a chance to win out there, and so everyone’s win rate per season has gone down. The other thing is that, since 2010 and 2011, Will’s gone from thinking he has to dominate every race to now accepting what’s out of his control and our control. He’s got the patience to size up what the race might give us and then go for the win.”

  If Jonsson’s jubilation on that hot Fontana night was understandable, so there were many in the paddock – Power’s co-workers, past and present – who shared his joy.

  “Even though we’ve been in competing teams since the end of 2008, our relationship has stayed good,” says Rob Edwards, his old team manager at Team Australia/Walker Racing who went on to join Schmidt Peterson Motorsport and currently works at Andretti Autosport. “I can honestly say that if one of our cars couldn’t win a race, I wanted Will to win. Knowing the situation he’d come from at Derrick Walker’s team, I’m not surprised that, although his speed shook things up at Penske, the chemistry took a while to come together in a big team with established relationships and procedures.

  “But when he did win that championship, the wait made it all the sweeter – for him I’m sure, but also others, including myself and Patti [Rob’s wife]. We were genuinely thrilled for him, and I’ll always be happy to have been involved in Will’s first two seasons in the States. He’s one of the best drivers I’ve ever worked with.”

  Cindric could have done happily without the wait, without the missed chances. He, like Power, was at least as relieved as he was joyous at the end of the race in Fontana. He didn’t even really think of it in terms of his first personal championship title as a strategist.

  “I wouldn’t say I was nervous before that race,” says Cindric, “but it was hard not to think, ‘If it doesn’t happen this year, I’m not sure it’s ever going to happen.’ I think we’d been through all the disappointments it’s possible to have! So afterward, I was just happy that Will had finally got the title he’d deserved for so long. Knowing his personality, knowing how hard he takes things, knowing how much time he dedicates to preparing himself in every sense – keeping fit, going through data, getting his head in the game – if he’d retired from IndyCar racing without a championship, it would have been a travesty. And I think there were a lot of people who felt that way.

  “The other thing I thought about, looking at it from a Team Penske perspective, is how sad it would have been if Will had never won it with us but had gone to another team and won the title with them. When you consider all the tough times and great times that we’d been through together, that would have been hard.”

  Roger Penske echoes that. “It was definitely gratifying to see Will win his first series crown [note that word ‘first’], knowing how hard he’d worked for it,” remarks The Captain. “He’s matured and grown tremendously with our team over the last seven years – he’s proven he can win on any type of course and he’s consistently a good finisher.”

  Looking to the future, Roger says he doesn’t expect that having a title under his belt will significantly alter Will’s driving, his attitude or behavior. And nor should it.

  “Will has always driven with a lot of confidence so I’m not sure how much that can increase,” says RP, “although he does seem a little more relaxed, in a good way. But ever since our first meeting [that interview in Detroit in December 2008], Will has always been honest and up-front and I think we have been the same with him. Having that good communication is critical and it has been a big part of why we’ve experienced so much success together in a relatively short amount of time.”

  In other words, keep doing what you’ve been doing, kid.

  Honest: that word and its derivatives come up a lot when talking about and reflecting on Will Power, and he appreciates the same from others. In fact, he mentally banishes bullshit artists and ass-kissers to the “untrustworthy” pile. Which is why he continues to appreciate the views of Oriol Servià, who reflects on the evolution of his former teammate.

  “The respect that grew between us – not only driving skills but also how honest we became with each other in 2008 – really transformed into a natural friendship that I feel will last a long time,” says Oriol. “With that said, I hope we end up teammates again one day; there’s nobody I enjoy beating more than him! Ha!


  “It’s what makes Will so unbelievably fast that is also what I’d say was his biggest weakness at one time; he always feels he is not driving well enough. That’s generally a good thing, but there was a time when, if he knew he had a problem, say, with a certain corner or with a certain driver, he’d obsess so much about it to the point he would collide with that driver or crash at that corner! But I think he recognized this and through his career he’s worked on that and improved a lot.

  “Anyway, constantly looking at what you can do better is what every driver at this level of the sport should do. And Will, man, he goes down to the most basic detail. He’ll ask himself, ‘Am I pushing the pedals too hard? Am I turning the wheel too slow? Am I not pushing the tires enough? Should I be using the curbs less? Or more?’ and so on. Well, Will applies this methodology to every single corner of every single track! That’s deeeep analysis!”

  Servià smiles and shakes his head. “Ah, that Mr Power is not your usual human, by any account, okay? But he is overcommitted, obsessive, blunt and crazy enough that makes any encounter with him always entertaining and life-enriching.”

  Dave Faustino, as a race engineer who’s been through a lot with Will, might not go along with the “always” part of that comment, but he’s a committed fan of Power’s as well as an appreciative colleague and friend. Part of this may be explained by a comment Elizabeth once made – “Will and Dave are so similar, it’s not even funny. They both hate being told that, but enough people have noticed it that maybe they’ll both start to accept it’s true!”