Roger S. Penske (born February 20, 1937, in Shaker Heights, Ohio) is the owner of the automobile racing team Penske Racing, the Penske Corporation, and other automotive-related businesses. A winning racer in the late 1950s, Penske was named 1961's Sports Car Club of America Driver of the Year by Sports Illustrated. After retiring from driving a few years later, he created one of the most successful teams in IndyCar Series and NASCAR racing.

He also is one of the corporate directors at General Electric and was chairman of Super Bowl XL in Detroit, Michigan. He was previously on the board of Home Depot and Delphi Automotive before resigning to chair the Detroit Super Bowl Committee. He has an estimated net worth of $1.4 billion. He is a 1959 graduate of Lehigh University in Pennsylvania, where he was also a member of the Phi Gamma Delta fraternity.

Penske's father was a corporate executive for a metal fabrication company and encouraged his son to become an entrepreneur. As a teenager he bought older cars, repaired them and sold them at a profit from his family's home in Cleveland, Ohio. In 10 years, Penske raced and sold about 32 cars.

Joseph "Joe" Nocera (born May 6, 1952 in Providence, Rhode Island) is an American business journalist and author. He became a business columnist for The New York Times in April 2005. In March 2011, Nocera became a regular opinion columnist for The Times' Op-Ed page, writing on Tuesdays and Saturdays. Nocera is also a business commentator for NPR’s Weekend Edition with Scott Simon.

Prior to joining The New York Times, Nocera worked at Fortune from 1995 to 2005, in a variety of positions, finally as editorial director. Nocera was the "Profit Motive" columnist at GQ from 1990 to 1995, and wrote the same column for Esquire from 1988 to 1990.

In the 1980s, Nocera was an editor at Newsweek; an executive editor of New England Monthly; and a senior editor at Texas Monthly. In the late 1970s he was an editor at The Washington Monthly.

Nocera earned a B.S. in journalism from Boston University in 1974, and lives in New York City.

Nocera's most recent book is All the Devils Are Here, co-written with Bethany McLean and released in 2010.

Charles Peete "Charlie" Rose, Jr. (born January 5, 1942) is an American television talk show host and journalist. Since 1991 he has hosted Charlie Rose, an interview show distributed nationally by PBS since 1993. He has also co-anchored CBS This Morning since January 2012. Rose, along with Lara Logan, has hosted the revived CBS classic Person to Person, a news program during which celebrities are interviewed in their homes, originally hosted from 1953 to 1961 by Edward R. Murrow.

Rose was born in Henderson, North Carolina, the only child of Margaret Frazier and Charles Peete Rose, Sr., tobacco farmers who owned a country store. As a child, Rose lived above his parents' store in Henderson and helped out with the family business from age seven. Rose admitted in a Fresh Dialogues interview that as a child his insatiable curiosity was constantly getting him in trouble. A high school basketball star, Rose entered Duke University intending to pursue a degree with a pre-med track, but an internship in the office of Democratic North Carolina Senator B. Everett Jordan got him interested in politics. Rose graduated in 1964 with a bachelor's degree in history. At Duke, he was a member of the Kappa Alpha Order fraternity. He earned a Juris Doctor from the Duke University School of Law in 1968. He met his wife, Mary (née King), while attending Duke.

Mark Neary Donohue, Jr. (March 18, 1937 – August 19, 1975), nicknamed "Captain Nice", was an American racecar driver known for his ability to set up his own race car as well as driving it to victories. Donohue is probably best known as the driver of the 1500+ bhp “Can-Am Killer” Porsche 917-30 and as the winner of the 1972 Indianapolis 500. Cars that Donohue raced include: AMC Javelin, AMC Matador, Chevrolet Camaro, Eagle-Offy, Elva Courier, Ford GT-40 MK IV, Ferrari 250LM, Ferrari 512, Lola T70, Lola T330, Lotus 20, McLaren M16, Porsche 911, Porsche 917/10, Porsche 917/30, Shelby Cobra, and Shelby Mustang GT350R.

Donohue was born in Haddon Township, New Jersey and grew up in Summit, New Jersey. He attended the Pingry School in Hillside, New Jersey and upon graduation, he entered Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. Donohue was graduated in 1959 with a bachelors degree in mechanical engineering and began racing his 1957 Corvette casually at the age of twenty-two. He won his first event, a Belknap County, New Hampshire hillclimb, in that car. Eventually, through networking with various SCCA drivers, he was introduced to a well-known retired race driver and as-yet unsuccessful race team owner named Roger Penske.

Jeffery Michael "Jeff" Gordon (born August 4, 1971) is an American professional stock car racing driver. He drives the No. 24 Drive to End Hunger/DuPont Chevrolet Impala for Hendrick Motorsports in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series. He is a four-time series champion and a three-time Daytona 500 winner. He is third on the all-time wins list, with 85 career wins, and has the most wins in NASCAR's modern era (1972–present). In 2009, Gordon became the first driver to reach $100 million in career winnings in the Cup series.

Gordon, along with Rick Hendrick, are the co-owners of the No. 48 Lowe's Chevrolet, driven by Jimmie Johnson, who won five consecutive Cup championships from 2006 to 2010. Gordon also has an equity stake in his own No. 24 team. He was born in Vallejo, California, raised in Pittsboro, Indiana, and currently resides in Charlotte, North Carolina.