Carpenter seeks third straight IndyCar season finale race win - MotorSportsTalk

Ed Carpenter can no longer be considered a “sleeper” for oval races. Or for that matter, season finales.

The eponymous team principal and driver of the No. 20 Fuzzy’s Vodka Chevrolet seeks his third straight curtain-closer victory in the IZOD IndyCar Series, having won at Kentucky in 2011 and Auto Club Speedway in Fontana a year ago.

“My first win at Kentucky was the most exciting because I finally won an IndyCar Series race,” Carpenter said in the team’s advance release. “But last year’s Fontana win was the most gratifying since it was my team and we were in our first year of operation. It meant a lot to go up against the big teams like Ganassi, Penske and Andretti and win the race with our new one-car team.”

He’s back at Fontana this year (Saturday, 8 p.m. ET, NBCSN) to defend his MAVTV 500 crown and give the team a lift after the travails of its transporter fire en route back from a test there last month.

“We had a massive clean-up job to do in just a few days after the fire,” he said. “But our team really dug in and spent extra hours washing and cleaning everything we had in the trailer. Sure, we lost a few items in the fire but we were able to save a lot of things. The IndyCar community really helped us too.”

Between running the high line and dealing with the expected fall-off in tires over the course of a stint, Carpenter knows there is more to achieving success now with this car, at this track, than what used to be the case with the previous Dallara chassis at 1.5-mile ovals.

“That’s the beauty of the Fontana racetrack; there are a lot of options,” he said. “It’s up to us and the other teams to figure out how to make the car work for the best shot at winning the race. It’s a long race with 250 laps and your team must be good in pit stops, making the proper adjustments as the race develops and being able read the track surface as the sun goes down and the lights go on.”

His sponsor Fuzzy’s Vodka sponsors Victory Lane in Fontana. Carpenter winning would be one positive achievement for them; Fuzzy’s is also offering a $250,000 bonus to either Tony Kanaan or Scott Dixon if they were to win on Saturday night. Kanaan and Dixon have the wins in the first two legs of the Fuzzy’s Vodka Triple Crown, held at Indianapolis and Pocono earlier this year.

Follow @TonyDiZinno

An IndyCar executive said there is “absolutely” disappointment that its long-awaited video game recently was delayed beyond its target date, but the series remains optimistic about the new title.

“Well, I don’t know how quick it will be, but the whole situation is important to us,” Penske Entertainment president and CEO Mark Miles said during a news conference Monday morning to announce IndyCar’s NTT title sponsorship. “Motorsport Games has spent a lot of money, a lot of effort to create an IndyCar title. What we’ve seen of that effort, which is not completely obvious, is very reassuring.

“I think it’s going to be outstanding. That’s our shared objective, that when it is released, it’s just widely accepted. A great credit both to IndyCar racing, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, something that our fans love.”

In June 2021, IndyCar announced a new partnership with Motorsport Games to create and distribute an IndyCar video game for the PC and Xbox and PlayStation consoles in 2023.

But during an earnings call last week, Motorsport Games said the IndyCar game had been delayed to 2024 to ensure high quality.

Somewhat compounding the delay is that IndyCar’s license for iRacing expired after the end of the 2022 season because of its exclusive agreement with Motorsport Games.

That’s resulted in significant changes for IndyCar on iRacing, which had provided a high-profile way for the series to stay visible during its 2020 shutdown from the pandemic. (Players still can race an unbranded car but don’t race on current IndyCar tracks, nor can they stream).

That’s helped ratchet up the attention on having a video game outlet for IndyCar.

“I wish we had an IndyCar title 10 years ago,” said Miles, who has been working with the organization since 2013. “We’ve been close, but we’ve had these I think speed bumps.”

IndyCar is hopeful the Motorsports Game edition will be ready at the start of 2024. Miles hinted that beta versions could be unveiled to reporters ahead of the time “to begin to show the progress in a narrow way to make sure we’ve got it right, to test the progress so that we’re ready when they’re ready.”

It’s been nearly 18 years since the release of the most recent IndyCar video game for console or PC.

“(We) better get it right,” Miles said. “It’s something we’re very close to and continue to think about what it is to make sure we get it over the line in due course.”