The Sheer Force of Will Power

by David Malsher

  Cindric, though, was left a little mystified.

  “Will didn’t show any emotion whatsoever,” he says, “just looked at the desk a lot and was very matter of fact. He said he’d really like the opportunity, he understood it was Helio’s car, and . . . that was about it. It was definitely the shortest of the driver interviews, and after he left we all looked at each other and said, ‘Err . . . well that was odd.’”

  Some 200 miles southwest as the crow flies, two very nervous people got on each other’s nerves.

  “Derrick kept coming down to my office asking, ‘Have you heard anything?’” says Liz. “I’d say, ‘No. Have you?’ He’d look at me like I was crazy. ‘Why would I be asking whether you’ve heard if I’ve already heard?!’ And so on like that. You can imagine . . . But I knew Will had gone into the interview early and hours had gone by and still there had been no news. So we were thinking, okay, that’s good. The longer they want to speak to him, the better, right?

  “Finally my phone rings, and out of one ear I can hear Derrick rushing down the hall because he’s heard my phone. In my other ear, it’s Will. I say, ‘So how did it go?’ and Will says, ‘Terrible. I blew it completely. I was so nervous, I couldn’t talk.’

  “Derrick’s now beside me, and I tell him what Will’s said. Derrick’s like, ‘Bloody hell! What was the point of all those days with the spotlight and the video?’ I mean he’s really crushed and depressed.

  “I try and take the opposite way of thinking: Will’s very hard on himself, he’s not a good gauge of this kind of thing, so I say, ‘Will, you know you’re probably just being your usual glass-half-empty self.’ But he’s insistent – ‘When I say it went bad, I mean bad! After the question about Surfers and then giving them my résumé, it was all downhill. And after I’d met with Roger, I chatted with Cindric for a couple of hours and he says I’m up against Marco [Andretti], [Dan] Wheldon, [Ryan] Hunter-Reay, Bourdais and Justin [Wilson].’

  “Eventually I hang up from Will and I tell Derrick what Will said, and we both come to the conclusion that, seriously, if Will’s been with them that long, and Cindric took the trouble to have a two-hour chat with him afterward, then there must be some interest there.”

  From Cindric’s perspective, the post-interview chat was to allow a clearly uncomfortable and slightly tongue-tied young man a second chance. Tim sympathized and empathized.

  “Honestly, I know how intimidating it can be to sit with Roger at Penske Corporation in Detroit in his conference room,” he says. “It’s very different from being in the bus at a racetrack and this was the first time Will had met him at all. I mean, for me, even after sixteen years in that environment it’s still, ‘Mr Penske’ – it’s not Roger the racer, it’s Mr Penske the businessman. So, yeah, I tried to talk to Will afterwards to see him more at ease than when he was with Roger, Bud and myself, and hopefully get him to open up a bit.”

  Apparently, it wasn’t an entirely successful quest.

  Says Elizabeth: “As Derrick and I are chatting after Will’s phone call, someone yells down to Derrick, ‘I’ve got Tim Cindric on the line for you!’

  “Well, Derrick’s on the phone to Tim for I’d guess forty-five minutes to an hour, and of course I’m dying. Totally freaking out. What does this mean? It has to be another good sign, doesn’t it? Then Derrick hangs up and comes down to my office. He says, ‘Well, your man was right about one thing: he blew the interview.’

  “I’m devastated. ‘Nooooo . . . what happened?’ And Derrick says, ‘The reason our mate Cindric was calling was because he could not get a read on Will whatsoever – clammed up, didn’t volunteer any information. Tim says he couldn’t tell if he’s sincere.’

  “Basically, Tim had been calling Derrick to get some idea of Will’s personality, so Derrick tried to explain that he regarded Will as a bit of an orphan in this country, and in order to get the best from him he had to feel like he had a home, he had to feel wanted. Oh, and also in that conversation, Cindric told Derrick it was now between Will and one other driver, and they were torn.”

  “Will flew from Detroit to the PRI [Performance Racing Industry] Show in Orlando and I flew to meet him and we went to Disney World,” says Liz. “And he told me again that he thought the interview went terribly and I tried to reassure him. Derrick had told me not to tell Will about the phone call from Tim asking for a second opinion, but I felt I had to tell Will because he was beating himself up so bad.”

  More than two weeks went by and there was no word from Penske HQ. Cindric had asked Power when he’d be flying to Australia and he’d told him 17 December. By 16 December there had still been no word.

  “Those two weeks are a blank,” says Liz. “I don’t recall what went on – except my brother got in a car wreck! Apart from that, I guess we just did our thing, which was me going into Walker Racing and Will going to the gym and then hanging around the apartment. I don’t know. Hope was fading, honestly, because we certainly didn’t expect Penske to call and say, ‘Sorry, you haven’t got the ride and here’s why.’ Basically, if we didn’t hear, it would be because someone else had heard. So Will was like, ‘I guess they didn’t pick me.’

  “And then the night of the sixteenth, the day before Will’s due to fly, I’m dozing on his couch. It’s 9.45 pm and the phone rings. I kinda hear him being friendly on the phone, so I just assume it’s maybe one of his friends or family, but it’s a bit different because he’s sounding really formal. Then I hear him say, ‘Thanks Roger, thanks Tim. Great to speak with you.’ Boy, did I come awake in a hurry!

  “I hop up, and Will’s just saying his goodbyes, and he can’t wait to tell me – he turns and gives me the thumbs-up. And I’m jumping up and down. I couldn’t believe it after that long, long wait.”

  Interestingly, while Power in his interview had apparently been a blend of genuine (Roger’s verdict), robotic (Cindric’s perspective) and “shit” (his own critique), there was in fact something he’d neglected to report to Liz and Derrick at the time – and forgot to mention for this book, incidentally. As Cindric explains, what really struck a major chord with Roger, Bud and himself was Will’s grateful attitude toward this potential opportunity.

  “Remember, the criteria for us was, ‘Who was going to fit the situation the best?’” says Tim. “The deal for car No. 3 was very much an open-ended one, because once Helio got done with the court case and if it went favorably, it would be his car again, right away. So while we felt that from a driver’s angle, there were pros and cons for all the people we interviewed, once we started talking to them about our perspective on a car that we still considered Helio’s, some of these guys were more demanding, talking about adding a third car for other races, having full-season programs and so on. Will was the total opposite. He seemed very amenable and accepting of the situation – ‘Just give me the car even if it’s only for one race.’ And that was what really sent him over the line from our point of view. Even if he drove for Roger for only one race, he’d be grateful that he was the one we chose, and there wouldn’t be a lot of baggage if that’s where it began and ended.”

  After the call from Penske, Power called Walker to tell him his efforts in interview technique training hadn’t been in vain: he had a foot in the door. As was often the case for Will and Liz, however, their euphoria was short-lived.

  Says Liz: “Ugh, that year. In terms of how draining and awful it was, this relentless uncertainty and . . . I suppose you could almost say dread . . . I’m not sure we’ve had a year like that before or since. I know dramas still happen in our life, but whenever I put them in the perspective of 2008, they all seem quite trivial, or at least they’re over quicker, whereas that year, it was like we weren’t allowed to be happy or content for more than twenty-four hours at a time.”

  And that constant strain took its toll on the three people who’d shared it all – Will, Liz . . . and Kathy.

  “The day after Will discovered he’d got the Penske ride, Mom started throwing up blood s
o bad that she had to have six blood transfusions. We almost lost Mom just 18 months after Dad died.”

  That summed up 2008 – bittersweet to the very end.

  Chapter 13

  Pillar of strength

  “This is supposed to be Will’s book!” says Kathy Cannon, trying to deflect attention away from the medical crisis that dominated her 2008 Christmas season. “We don’t need to talk about my problem. It was just a one-off thing and it was over really quick.”

  But Liz’s description of the situation was no exaggeration: Kathy had suffered a full-scale emergency requiring immediate attention. Like most people of her stoic generation, Kathy seeks to play down personal problems, but she’s also modestly ignoring the fact that she’s intrinsic to the Will Power story. What happens to her happens to the whole family dynamic.

  Kind, hilarious, conscientious, and compassionate, Kathy has been one of the rocks in Will’s life for most of his time in America. She has watched him grow from the “sorta punky-looking kid” at the shopping mall in Indianapolis in 2006, into the honorable, responsible, and devoted husband to Liz. Meanwhile, Will has seen the woman who basically just looks like a shorter and more mature version of Liz evolve from being his one-off wardrobe assistant into his PA, secretary, mother-in-law, housekeeper, personal shopper, healthcare advisor . . . the list could go on. And Kathy’s evolution in status was swift, which is why Will was tormented with the worst possible thoughts for 14 hours straight on 18 December 2008. Kathy had dropped him off at Indianapolis airport the night before to connect at LAX for a flight down to Australia for Christmas. Connection made, he phoned Liz from the airport, and the last words he heard from her, just as Qantas flight attendants were asking passengers to turn off their phones for the 7000-mile journey to Brisbane, was, “Oh God, I’ve got to go! Mom’s code blue!”

  “Poor Will! That wasn’t fair, was it?” says Kathy. “Lizzy told me later that he’d been yelling down the phone, ‘Noooo! Don’t hang up on me!’ because I guess we hadn’t appreciated it would be basically a day before he knew how things turned out for me.

  “But, yes, the problem was stomach ulcers. I guess that horrible year had taken its toll on me, too. The uncertainty around Will’s future in IndyCar, and then his contract negotiations with A1GP – all of that ‘What will he do next year?’ worry – meant he and Liz had been emotionally putting themselves and each other through it between races. I’d been trying to maintain the peace and keep a happy environment, which was sometimes hard to do! Then of course there was the tension leading up to the interview with Roger Penske . . . I was caught up in that because I knew – we all knew – that was Will’s big chance. It was what we’d been hoping and praying for.”

  And then everything had panned out in the best possible way. While this probably has little basis in medical knowledge, it’s not a huge mental leap to wonder if the sudden drop in adrenaline as Will ditched the A1GP idea, committed to finding an IndyCar seat and then landed that opportunity with Team Penske is what triggered Kathy’s ulcers to hemorrhage. The psychosomatic response to no longer being so crucial to the harmony of the Will–Liz relationship, the fact that Will had made a key career step, the chance to head back to Texas to spend Christmas with her boys, Matt and Billy . . . Had this sudden release of twenty months of tension since Bo died contributed to Kathy’s medical emergency? Who knows? What was important was that the crisis was dealt with promptly and efficiently. Kathy was able to leave the hospital within thirty-six hours and finally take her flight to Dallas.

  “After losing all that blood, I was very weak and anemic for a couple weeks,” she admits, “but apart from that, I recovered quite rapidly, I think. Honestly, I don’t recall it that well; I’ve mentally blocked out most of the bad times.”

  Right there, in just one sentence, is why mother-in-law has been the perfect counterpoint to son-in-law. Once upon a time, not so long ago, Will was unable to ignore the what-might-have-been moments over the previous race or two, and he’d spend down-time stewing over bad races. While one shouldn’t doubt Will when he says he doesn’t do that anymore, at least part of the reason for his change is his regularly hearing Kathy’s philosophy of “what’s done is done; now move on.” She isn’t unsympathetic or blasé when Fate has slapped him in the face; in fact, when he’s not within earshot, she can sound more anguished than Will himself. Yet she’s also the first to remind him that he can’t change history, but he can go and kick everyone’s butt next time out.

  So whatever the standard clichés and jokes that men like to utter about “the mother-in-law”, there’s never been a hint of that from Will. Both he and Elizabeth know that having Kathy living just fifteen minutes away has been beneficial on a practical level but an absolute blessing from an emotional standpoint. She is supremely tolerant. Sure, there are days when dealing with “the kids” ages her, but overall, her role in their lives has kept Kathy young and has also provided a welcome sense of structure to her days since her beloved husband, Bo, died in May 2007.

  “Will has always been good to me,” says Kathy, “and honestly, that doesn’t surprise me. Right from the start, I liked him, Bo liked him, and we both understood what Lizzy saw in him. First of all we’d heard her stories about what a lost soul he was, like a homeless puppy here in America. And then we started having him over to dinner occasionally, and I think his naïvety and little-boyishness was endearing to all of us, really. But Bo and I could also definitely tell that Will and Liz were building a special rapport. He made her laugh even though you’d have to say he’s the introvert and she’s the outgoing one. By the time it became a regular thing for him to come to our house, it was obvious there was a real mutual affection there.”

  And perhaps surprisingly, that didn’t cause alarm. Single guys at the forefront of a somewhat glamorous and gladiatorial sport will find that partners are easily found and easily dumped, and they can eagerly take full advantage of that for many years. Relationships that last about the same length of time as a qualifying session are hardly uncommon in racing. And yet Bo and Kathy never had their parent–daughter protectiveness triggered by anything Will did or said. Right from the start, they recognized he was different from the love ’em and leave ’em race driver cliché, and they were equally certain his prospects in motorsport would soon turn from inherently tenuous to something substantial and lasting.

  “Honestly, Will and Liz knew by the end of 2006 that they wanted to get married,” says Kathy, “and neither Bo nor myself feared for their future at all. Will was so genuine and clearly had Liz’s best interests at heart. And as for the career . . . well, obviously no job is truly secure, but Bo and I saw this very strong attitude in Will. Bo said, ‘That boy’s going places,’ and I had to agree; Will had this real drive, this determined attitude about him.”

  But he definitely needed Kathy’s help. Desperately. Will’s devotion to racing and, increasingly now, to Elizabeth, came at the expense of pretty much everything else. In terms of keeping on top of the general life requirements of a normal functioning adult, he was lost.

  “I became his PA in March 2007,” states Kathy, “and, ugh! There was just so much to do to catch up over the last year of chaos! He’d stacked all his bills in a drawer, the fridge was pretty much bare, he didn’t have enough clothes . . . And Lizzy had her own job to do as PR for Derrick [Walker]. She couldn’t be expected to keep on top of all of Will’s requirements as well as doing her various tasks. Plus, once the season started, they were on the road a lot.

  “So it became apparent pretty quick that he needed full-time help. And very soon I was doing his clothes shopping for him, buying his groceries, cooking his meals quite often, looking after his bills and things. The duties just started building up. And it says a lot about Will that he immediately put his trust in someone who he’d known for less than nine months. Suddenly I knew everything about him, every detail about his life. I mean, he couldn’t have cheated on my daughter or I’d have known about it because he had
itemized phone bills, but thankfully he loved Lizzy so much already, he wouldn’t have dreamed of doing anything like that. And I also swear it never crossed his mind that it was strange to put this much trust in me so soon after getting to know us all. But that’s what comes of having a clear conscience – Will never had anything to hide, there was nothing for him to be ashamed of or embarrassed about.”

  As Will recognized how vital Kathy had become in his daily life – now he didn’t have to worry about his worldly duties and could live in the bubble of a 100 per cent dedicated racing driver – the idea of himself and Liz ever being without this third member of the trinity was unthinkable. This matter came to a head in 2010, when the young couple who were to be married that December, decided to start looking for a house down near the Team Penske base in Mooresville, North Carolina.

  “I thought that was absolutely the right idea for Will’s job, to move from Indy to be near the team,” says Kathy. “Elizabeth was doing PR for the Dreyer & Reinbold team by then, and Robbie [Buhl] and Dennis [Reinbold] were very accommodating, and said they’d let her work from home instead of the D&R shop in Indy, so there was no real reason not to make the move. And I felt the timing was perfect; they were about to start their married life, and it would be healthy for them to do it without the mother-in-law around! I certainly didn’t want to be their burden so my plan was to move back to Dallas, where all my family’s from.

  “Well, I don’t think Liz and Will had even considered that. They pitched a fit and virtually begged me to come down to North Carolina and live near them, so after weeks and months of battling it out, I finally agreed to it. And honestly, now I’m glad I did. One of the reasons why I’m more comfortable with it, why it’s worked for Will and why his mom and I have always gotten along well is that I’ve never tried to be a replacement mother to him. Marg is his mother, period. I’m his PA and occasional stand-in mother figure.