Roger Penske gave up a successful racing career to open his first car dealership in 1965, but that didn’t keep him away from the track. He began Penske Racing that same year, and one of his earliest acquisitions was the 1966 Corvette coupe. The car had been used by Chevrolet to develop the L88 engine program, and Penske struck a deal with Zora Arkus-Dontov—who quietly worked around GM’s factory ban on race support—to buy the car for competition.
Penske sent a young West Coast racer named Dick Guldstrand to Detroit to drive the Corvette to Penske’s operation in Pennsylvania. [Read More]