You wouldn’t know it from the final driver standings with Ed Carpenter in 22nd (262 points) and Mike Conway 23rd (252), but as a combined unit, the drivers of the No. 20 Fuzzy’s Vodka Chevrolet had the eighth most points in the 2014 Verizon IndyCar Series season with 514 and was the best overall single-car team.
On their own, Conway had a best finish of 17th in (2009, 2011) and Carpenter a best of 12th (2009).
My colleague Chris Estrada touched on this the other night, but Carpenter could afford to be frustrated with third in Saturday’s MAVTV 500 given his pit lane speed limiter went out and he incurred a pit lane speeding violation. Without the time lost, he could well have captured his second win at the track in three years.
Still, Carpenter’s Texas win and Conway’s two left the Ed Carpenter Racing team with three wins this year, which tied Target Chip Ganassi Racing and Andretti Autosport for the second most wins by a team this season. Team Penske had a series-high five.
In the driver’s standings, the single driver on a single-car team who finished highest was Josef Newgarden, in 13th for Sarah Fisher Hartman Racing. Newgarden struggled through the first half of the year but ended with five top-10s in the final eight races to advance from 20th to 13th in points, driving the No. 67 Sarah Fisher Hartman Racing Honda.
The two teams merge to form CFH Racing in 2015. Newgarden is already signed, and Carpenter will run the ovals as he did this year.
Of the other three drivers on single-car teams, rookie Jack Hawksworth was 17th for Bryan Herta Autosport, Takuma Sato was 18th for A.J. Foyt Enterprises and Graham Rahal was 19th for Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing. RLL ran a second car at eight races but neither Oriol Servia or Luca Filippi had much in the way of luck or results.