Penske’s Caitlyn Brown becomes first female crew member to win Indy 500
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The mention of Caitlyn Brown’s name made Team Penske president Tim Cindric smile.
Josef Newgarden’s left-front tire changer, a history maker as the first known woman to win the Indy 500 as a member of the over-the-wall tire-changing pit crew, earned her stripes in the toughest team in the IndyCar Series. Her ascension since arriving in IndyCar as a rookie in 2021 — as part of Beth Paretta’s women-led Paretta Autosport Indy 500 team—as a young employee attached to Penske NASCAR program to earning the trust of the No. 2 Chevy crew to go from backup tire changer to a frontline team member in less than two years is wholly impressive.
“She came to us on the NASCAR program and just wanted to work on race cars,” Cindric said. “When Beth Paretta’s program started up here, we told everybody internally what was happening there and wanted to know if there were any females that wanted to be part of that program, and she was the first one to raise her hand and say, hey, I want a chance.
“We watched how hard she worked at it. They came in at 5:00 in the morning, doing pit stops before the rest of our pit stop practices started internally, and she worked her butt off. She earned the whole respect of the crew, and obviously we had some of our mechanics on that crew while it was here, and they said, look, she deserves a chance on these cars if she wants it.
“And then she worked really, really hard to earn her way and earn her spot changing the left front tire on Josef’s car. She is solid. She’s all business.”
Cindric sees a big future for Brown in the sport.
“I think she has the opportunity and, really, the work ethic to be one of the top people at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway,” he added. “I think her runway is really long, and if she’s patient and she continues to be in the right place and do the things she’s doing now, the sky’s the limit for her.”
