INDIANAPOLIS -- There's no such thing as a gamble in Roger Penske's world.

Cool, calculating, never leaving anything to chance, the 64-year-old owner climbed the fence along with his driver, Helio Castroneves, after Castroneves won his second straight Indianapolis 500 on Sunday.

	Team owner Roger Penske, left, has won at Indianapolis a staggering 12 of the 27 times he has entered.

Castroneves crossed the finish line running on fumes, the payoff for Penske and Penske Racing president Tim Cindric's decision not to stop for fuel over the final 42 laps.

Many at the track called it a gamble. But clearly, little in Penske's domain is left to fate or chance.

"Tim made absolutely the right call to stay out there,'' Penske said. "I don't know if you noticed, but we were getting two, three, four more laps under green than everyone else'' on a full tank of gas.

Penske notices those kinds of things, and he put Cindric in charge of Castroneves' pit because he's a stickler for details, too.

Penske put Castroneves in the car because the driver knows how to milk every last drop of fuel out when he has to. With fuel dwindling, Castroneves knew exactly when to go full throttle and when to let up to get better gas mileage.

Cindric and Castroneves knew their car wasn't fast enough to win based on speed alone. With 40 laps to go -- when the big decision was made -- Cindric analyzed the race and took an educated guess that another yellow flag would come out before the end.

As Penske pointed out, most cars get about 2½ miles per gallon when they're running at full throttle, between 5 and 6 when they're running under caution.

The yellow that Penske had hoped for finally came out on the next-to-last lap, just as Paul Tracy was going around Castroneves in turn three. Indy Racing League officials ruled Tracy's pass occurred a split-second after the caution period began, so they bumped him back to second.

More than 5½ hours after the race ended, the official results were finally posted. Tracy's team quickly filed a protest, which will be heard Monday.

Penske had plenty of anxious moments on this day. He made a similar decision on fuel earlier this year at Nazereth, Pa., where driver Gil de Ferran ran out on the final lap while leading.

Did that cause any hesitation Sunday?

Not really, Penske and Cindric agreed. Most decisions in Penske's world are made on playing the percentages, and that day it didn't work out.

"Some days it's your day, some days it isn't,'' Cindric said.

More days than not, however, it is Penske's day.

Penske, head of an $11 billion transportation empire to go with his racing teams, has won at Indy a staggering 12 of the 27 times he has entered.

Before this season, he left the Championship Auto Racing Teams for the Indy Racing League, a decision that drastically altered the balance of power between the (now) successful IRL and the (now) ailing CART.

A gamble?

"I think one of the reasons we came to IRL was because of Marlboro's interest to be in a series that would be an international series,'' Penske said. "This is a tremendous benefit to our team, and certainly our sponsor.''

Indeed, Penske excruciatingly examined every angle of this switch before he made it.

It stemmed from his return to Indy after a five-year absence. Because he was a CART owner competing in an IRL race, he was forced to take his main sponsor's name off the car to conform with a 1998 tobacco settlement in which Phillip Morris agreed to advertise in one series.

He won that race with no logo on the car. Neither Penske nor Marlboro wanted that to happen again at "The Greatest Spectacle in Racing.''

So the decision to move was made, and, predictably, the rewards are coming.

Penske left his favorite place Sunday with another Indy 500 title in hand and with Castroneves in first place in the IRL standings.

"We didn't come here just to win this race, but to win a championship at the end of the year. That's my focus now,'' Castroneves said.

Penske's too.

The way his people see it, that can only be good for the sport.

"This guy is the biggest cheerleader with what's going on,'' Cindric said, pointing at Castroneves. "And anytime you've got R.P. out there on the fence, it's a good thing.''