Oilpressure

While the NTT IndyCar Series was enjoying an excellent race weekend in Milwaukee, the world of motorsports lost a legend. I was baffled how little publicity it got.

Karl Kainhofer passed away last Friday night at the age of 94. If that name does not ring a bell with you; you are either too young to remember, or you need to brush up on your racing history.

To say Kainhofer was instrumental in the early days of Team Penske, is putting it mildly. The Porsche-trained master mechanic was the first fulltime employee hired by what was then known as Penske Racing. When Roger Penske was still a driver, Kainhofer was his mechanic. He was the Chief Mechanic for Mark Donohue, when Penske got his first Indianapolis 500 win. His meticulous nature and attention to detail is what set the stage for what is now known as Penske Perfect.

In 1977, Karl Kainhofer became Vice-President and General Manager of Penske Racing. Essentially; he was Tim Cindric, before there was a Tim Cindric. In 1994, Kainhofer was vital in developing the famous pushrod Mercedes that carried Al Unser, Jr to a dominant Indianapolis 500 victory. All in all, Kainhofer oversaw Roger Penske’s first ten Indianapolis 500 wins, before retiring in 1997 after 32 years with the team.

He became known as Penske’s Maestro, which was the title of the Gordon Kirby’s book about the legendary Austrian-born motorsports legend.

To insert myself into the story, I had the honor of meeting Mr. Kainhofer in 2016 at Pocono. My assigned workstation in the media center was directly across from Gordon Kirby, and we had been chatting throughout the weekend. I noticed an elderly gentleman who had been sitting with Kirby for a while, but I had no idea who he was. Then Kirby looked to me and asked “Do you know who this is?” Sheepishly, I said no. But when Kirby said it was Karl Kainhofer, I immediately knew who he was and I suddenly realized I was sitting across from racing royalty. We talked for a couple of minutes, but I’ll admit I was star-struck. All I really remember about the conversation was that he was very nice and seemed to be exceptionally modest – considering who he was and where he stands in motorsports history.

I now own Kirby’s book on Kainhofer and it is an excellent read. (Photo: Amazon.com).

I knew Mr. Kainhofer was getting up in years, and I had heard recently that his health was not great. But I was still surprised and saddened to learn on Saturday morning that he had passed away last Friday night. As I said earlier, I am also surprised and a little disappointed that his passing has not been given the proper attention I think it deserves.

I would like to express my condolences to the family of Karl Kainhofer, a motorsports icon. May he rest in peace.

George Phillips

This entry was posted on August 27, 2025 at 4:04 am and is filed under IndyCar. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.