From testing Indy cars at Barber Motorsports Park to a Team Penske sports car at Sebring International Raceway, Simon Pagenaud’s past week has been diverse, to say the least. His trip to New York City on Friday was no different.
Pagenaud visited the most populous U.S. city to visit with members of DXC Technology, the primary sponsor of his No. 22 Team Penske Chevrolet for six Verizon IndyCar Series races in 2018 and an associate sponsor for the remaining races. In their first year together with Team Penske in 2017, Pagenaud took DXC to victory circle at the season-ending GoPro Grand Prix of Sonoma.
As part of the visit to Manhattan, Pagenaud’s DXC car appeared at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), where DXC is listed, and sat on display in the plaza at the corner of popular Broad and Wall streets. Pagenaud rang the NYSE closing bell on Friday with his boss, team owner Roger Penske, and Mike Lawrie, chairman, president and CEO of DXC Technology. It was Pagenaud’s first visit to the stock exchange – a thrill for the French driver who commonly claims he would have an interest in working on Wall Street were he not a Verizon IndyCar Series driver.
That was not the extent of Pagenaud’s New York City adventure, which started much earlier in the day straight from his flight following the sports car test. Pagenaud began at the Classic Car Club Manhattan, an exclusive members-only establishment which also hosts various public events, situated on Pier 76 on the Hudson River. He met the DXC Chevrolet there for a photo shoot with Sports Illustrated and a video piece taking fans through the intricacies of the new-look 2018 car with its universal aero kit for The Drive.
From there, Pagenaud drove half a mile up the West Side Highway to The Player’s Tribune, where he took over its Instagram account for a tour of the industrial-style workplace. He stopped in the athletes’ lounge that features a basketball shooting game. Pagenaud was excited to try his luck at the game and hinted that fans might see him do something similar in an upcoming episode of Team Penske’s popular video series, the Penske Games, which pit its INDYCAR and NASCAR drivers against each other in a series of entertaining challenges.
Pagenaud, the 2016 Verizon IndyCar Series champion, then made a stop at Vox Media’s new office in the Financial District for a chat with The Verge, previewing his upcoming season and digging deeper into how he expects the new car to continue the series’ competitive depth. The Firestone Grand Prix of St. Petersburg will be its first event of competition, airing live at 12:30 p.m. ET March 11 on ABC and the Advance Auto Parts INDYCAR Radio Network.