Ed Carpenter Racing ‘crushing it’ at Indianapolis 500

By May 22, 2019, 3:16 PM EDT
0 Comments

INDIANAPOLIS – With all three of its drivers starting in the top four positions of Sunday’s 103rd Indianapolis 500 (11 am ET on NBC), Ed Carpenter Racing is proving to be one of the top Indy 500 teams in the field. The only other team with three drivers in the top 10 is Team Penske, including pole-sitter Simon Pagenaud, sixth-place starter and defending Indy 500 winner Will Power and NTT IndyCar Series points leader Josef Newgarden starting eighth.

Carpenter is the only owner/driver in the series and has already placed his name solidly in the history of the Indianapolis 500 as a three-time Indy 500 Pole Winner. Helio Castroneves has four Indy 500 Poles and Rick Mears is the all-time leader with six poles for the biggest event in racing.

Carpenter narrowly missed his fourth pole position in Sunday’s “Fast Nine Shootout” after completing a four-lap average of 229.889 miles per hour in the No. 20 Chevrolet. Pagenaud knocked him off with four laps that averaged 229.992 mph.

That is just .103 of a mile per hour that kept Carpenter from winning the pole. Broken down into time, it was a margin of just .700-of-a-second.

“Simon was just more consistent,” Carpenter said. “I think I had the fastest lap of qualifying and usually that’s a good sign for the pole, but I’ve also won a couple of my poles and not had the fastest lap. So, he was just a little more consistent than me, and that’s why he deserves to be on the pole.

“That’s the way this series is now,” Carpenter continued. “Everything is just thousandths and hundredths of a second all the way through. The battle that you saw for guys fighting for the 30th spot on Saturday, the ninth spot Saturday and now (Sunday) the strength of this series between the teams and drivers from top to bottom. You’ve got to be perfect to really put it together because if you’re not, everything is so tight you’re going to slide down, and that’s what’s great about being a part of the NTT IndyCar Series is it’s really the best competition in the world.”

Team Penske is celebrating its 50thAnniversary of its first Indianapolis 500 in 1969. Ed Carpenter Racing is in its seventh season.

Carpenter splits the driving duties of the No. 20 Chevrolet with Ed Jones of Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Carpenter drives the ovals and Jones the street and road courses. Another driver on the team, Spencer Pigot, qualified third for the outside of Row 1 with a four-lap average of 229.826 mph. He was the fastest driver in Saturday’s first round of qualifications.

Jones is driving the No. 63 ECR entry in this year’s Indy 500 and qualified fourth at 229.646 mph over four laps.

“The strength of the team is what I’m most excited about,” Carpenter said. “To have Ed Carpenter Racing cars starting second, third and fourth I think just speaks volumes to the organization and all our people and effort that they put into building our cars and the consistency of all the equipment is something I’m really personally proud of.

“On Sunday, Spencer was doing a rain dance, I was wanting to run. I really wish one of us would have ended up on pole, but I’m still really happy to be 2, 3 and 4. I think it’s amazing, and Simon just put in a really excellent run with his car, so consistent. I couldn’t believe how consistent it was. So, congrats to him.”

Carpenter has built his race team with a core group of employees. It may be one of the most efficient teams in the series when it comes to resources.

“It really has just been a constant process,” Carpenter told NBC Sports.com. “Derrick Walker helped us kind of lay the foundations for the team that first year, and the key players in the team from Tim Broyles, Matt Barnes, Brett Schmidt, many others that have been there with us from the very beginning. I should throw in Colleen (Dallenbach-Howerton) as well.

“We’ve been able to add quality people, and I think we’ve established a good culture and have a group that likes working together and is committed to the same thing. And we’ve had a great partner in Chevrolet, which also helps, and we just try to get better every year.”

Carpenter has been very competitive in the Indianapolis 500, but despite his three starts from the pole, he has never won the race. He came close last year when he led the most laps in the race with 65 but finished second to race-winner Power.

“I try not to look back too much other than to learn from mistakes and figure out how to do things better,” Carpenter said. “I’m really just looking forward and trying to make the best decisions we can and prepare the best we can. I think that’s the important thing, in how you get better, if you just reflect on all your misses and get discouraged by that, it’s probably not the best mindset.

“We’ve got a lot of great experience and we’ve been getting closer and better, and hopefully, we’ll be able to put it together on Sunday for one of our cars.”

When Carpenter was a youngster, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway was his playground. His mother, Laura, is married to IMS Chairman of the Board, Tony George, whose family owns the Speedway and INDYCAR.

Carpenter began his racing career in the United States Auto Club and earned his way into the series through Indy Lights. He was an Indy 500 rookie in 2004 when he drove for team owner Eddie Cheever and will make his 16thIndy 500 start on Sunday.

On the track, Carpenter is a three-time NTT IndyCar Series race winner.

The race he really covets is the Indy 500, but he will already go down in history as one of the greatest Indy 500 qualifying drivers in the history of the Indianapolis 500.

“I’ll let you all decide that,” the modest Carpenter said. “I’m proud of the effort and the consistency we’ve had. I’m really maintaining focus on figuring out a way to win this race. That’s the most important thing to me.

“One of the blessings of qualifying well here is we get a good starting spot. The negative is people ask me all the time, ‘Hey, are you going to win the pole again this year?’ And it’s like, ‘Well, that would be nice, but I really want to win the race.’

“That’s the goal.

“I don’t want people to think all I come to do here is qualify because that’s definitely not the focus. And that’s why I’m so proud of the team because I really think that obviously we have to go out and do a good job and put in four good laps, but the speed comes from the work the team does and the preparation, especially to have all of our cars so close.

“That’s for them, and hopefully, the race will be for one of us.”

‘It’s gnarly, bro’: IndyCar drivers face new challenge on streets of downtown Detroit

By Jun 2, 2023, 7:32 PM EDT
IndyCar Detroit downtown
James Black/Penske Entertainment
1 Comment

DETROIT – It was the 1968 motion picture, “Winning” when actress Joanne Woodward asked Paul Newman if he were going to Milwaukee in the days after he won the Indianapolis 500 as driver Frank Capua.

“Everybody goes to Milwaukee after Indianapolis,” Newman responded near the end of the film.

Milwaukee was a mainstay as the race on the weekend after the Indianapolis 500 for decades, but since 2012, the first race after the Indy 500 has been Detroit at Belle Isle Park.

This year, there is a twist.

Instead of IndyCar racing at the Belle Isle State Park, it’s the streets of downtown Detroit on a race course that is quite reminiscent of the old Formula One and CART race course that was used from 1982 to 1991.

Formula One competed in the United States Grand Prix from 1982 to 1988. Beginning in 1989, CART took over the famed street race through 1991. In 1992, the race was moved to Belle Isle, where it was held through last year (with a 2009-2011 hiatus after the Great Recession).

The Penske Corp. is the promoter of this race, and they did a lot of good at Belle Isle, including saving the Scott Fountain, modernizing the Belle Isle Casino, and basically cleaning up the park for Detroit citizens to enjoy.

The race, however, had outgrown the venue. Roger Penske had big ideas to create an even bigger event and moving it back to downtown Detroit benefitted race sponsor Chevrolet. The footprint of the race course goes around General Motors world headquarters in the GM Renaissance Center – the centerpiece building of Detroit’s modernized skyline.

INDYCAR IN DETROIT: Entry list, schedule, TV info for this weekend

JOSEF’S FAMILY TIES: Newgarden wins Indy 500 with wisdom of father, wife

Motor City is about to roar with the sound of Chevrolet and Honda engines this weekend as the NTT IndyCar Series is the featured race on the nine-turn, 1.7-mile temporary street course.

It’s perhaps the most unique street course on the IndyCar schedule because of the bumps on the streets and the only split pit lane in the series.

The pit lanes has stalls on opposing sides and four lanes across an unusual rectangular pit area (but still only one entry and exit).

Combine that, with the bumps and the NTT IndyCar Series drivers look forward to a wild ride in Motor City.

“It’s gnarly, bro,” Arrow McLaren driver Pato O’Ward said before posting the fastest time in Friday’s first practice. “It will be very interesting because the closest thing that I can see it being like is Toronto-like surfaces with more of a Long Beach-esque layout.

“There’s less room for error than Long Beach. There’s no curbs. You’ve got walls. I think very unique to this place.

PRACTICE RESULTS: Speeds from the first session

“Then it’s a bit of Nashville built into it. The braking zones look really very bumpy. Certain pavements don’t look bumpy but with how the asphalt and concrete is laid out, there’s undulation with it. So, you can imagine the cars are going to be smashing on every single undulation because we’re going to go through those sections fairly fast, and obviously the cars are pretty low. I don’t know.

“It looks fun, man. It’s definitely going to be a challenge. It’s going to be learning through every single session, not just for drivers and teams but for race control. For everyone.

“Everybody has to go into it knowing not every call is going to be smooth. It’s a tall task to ask from such a demanding racetrack. I think it’ll ask a lot from the race cars as well.”

The track is bumpy, but O’Ward indicated he would be surprised if it is bumper than Nashville. By comparison to Toronto, driving at slow speed is quite smooth, but fast speed is very bumpy.

“This is a mix of Nashville high-speed characteristics and Toronto slow speed in significant areas,” O’Ward said. “I think it’ll be a mix of a lot of street courses we go to, and the layout looks like more space than Nashville, which is really tight from Turn 4 to 8. It looks to be a bit more spacious as a whole track, but it’ll get tight in multiple areas.”

The concept of having four-wide pit stops is something that excites the 24-year-old driver from Monterey, Mexico.

“I think it’s innovation, bro,” O’Ward said. “If it works out, we’ll look like heroes.

“If it doesn’t, we tried.”

Because of the four lanes on pit road, there is a blend line the drivers will have to adhere to. Otherwise, it would be chaos leaving the pits compared to a normal two-lane pit road.

“If it wasn’t there, there’d be guys fighting for real estate where there’s one car that fits, and there’d be cars crashing in pit lane,” O’Ward said. “I get why they did that. It’s the same for everybody. I don’t think there’s a lot of room to play with. That’s the problem.

“But it looks freaking gnarly for sure. Oh my God, that’s going to be crazy.”

Alex Palou of Chip Ganassi Racing believes the best passing areas will be on the long straights because of the bumps in the turns. That is where much of the action will be in terms of gaining or losing a position in the race.

“It will also be really easy to defend in my opinion,” Palou said. “Being a 180-degree corner, you just have to go on the inside and that’s it. There’s going to be passes for sure but its’ going to be risky.

“Turn 1, if someone dives in, you end up in the wall. They’re not going to be able to pass you on the exit, so maybe with the straight being so long you can actually pass before you end up on the braking zone.”

Palou’s teammate, Marcus Ericsson, was at the Honda simulator in Brownsburg, Indiana, before coming to Detroit and said he was shocked by the amount of bumps on the simulator.

Race promoter Bud Denker, the President of Penske Corporation, and Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix President Michael Montri, sent the track crews onto the streets with grinders to smooth out the bumps on the race course several weeks ago.

“They’ve done a decent amount of work, and even doing the track walk, it looked a lot better than what we expected,” Ericsson said. “I don’t think it’ll be too bad. I hope not. That’ll be something to take into account.

“I think the track layout doesn’t look like the most fun. Maybe not the most challenging. But I love these types of tracks with rules everywhere. It’s a big challenge, and you have to build up to it. That’s the types of tracks that I love to drive. It’s a very much Marcus Ericsson type of track. I like it.”

Scott Dixon, who was second fastest in the opening session, has competed on many new street circuits throughout his legendary racing career. The six-time NTT IndyCar Series champion for Chip Ganassi Racing likes the track layout, even with the unusual pit lane.

“I don’t think that’s going to be something that catches on where every track becomes a double barrel,” Dixon said. “It’s new and interesting.

“As far as pit exit, I think Toronto exit is worse with how the wall sticks out. I think in both lanes, you’ve got enough lead time to make it and most guys will make a good decision.”

It wasn’t until shortly after 3 p.m. ET on Friday that the IndyCar drivers began the extended 90-minute practice session to try out the race course for the first time in real life.

As expected, there were several sketchy moments, but no major crashes during the first session despite 19 local yellow flags for incidents and two red flags.

Rookie Agustin Canapino had to cut his practice short after some damage to his No. 78 Dallara-Chevrolet, but he was among many who emerged mostly unscathed from scrapes with the wall.

“It was honestly less carnage than I expected,” said Andretti Autosport’s Kyle Kirkwood, who was third fastest in the practice after coming off his first career IndyCar victory in the most recent street race at Long Beach in April. “I think a lot of people went off in the runoffs, but no one actually hit the wall (too hard), which actually surprised me. Hats off to them for keeping it clean, including myself.

“It was quite a bit less grip than I think everyone expected. Maybe a little bit more bumpy down into Turn 3 than everyone expected. But overall they did a good job between the two manufacturers. I’m sure everyone had pretty much the same we were able to base everything off of. We felt pretty close to maximum right away.”

Most of the preparation for this event was done either on the General Motors Simulator in Huntersville, North Carolina, or the Honda Performance Development simulator in Brownsburg, Indiana.

“Now, we have simulators that can scan the track, so we have done plenty of laps already,” Power told NBC Sports. “They have ground and resurfaced a lot of the track, so it should be smoother.

“But nothing beats real-world experience. It’s going to be a learning experience in the first session.”

As a Team Penske driver, Power and his teammates were consulted about the progress and layout of the Detroit street course. They were shown what was possible with the streets that were available.

“We gave some input back after we were on the similar what might be ground and things like that,” Power said.

Racing on the streets of Belle Isle was a fairly pleasant experience for the fans and corporate sponsor that compete in the race.

But the vibe at the new location gives this a “big event” feel.

“The atmosphere is a lot better,” Power said. “The location, the accessibility for the fans, the crowd that will be here, it’s much easier. I think it will be a much better event.

“It feels like a Long Beach, only in a much bigger city. That is what street course racing is all about.”

Because the track promoter is also the team owner, Power and teammates Scott McLaughlin and Indy 500 winner Josef Newgarden will have a very busy weekend on the track, and with sponsor and personal appearances.

“That’s what pays the bills and allows us to do this,” Power said.

Follow Bruce Martin on Twitter at @BruceMartin_500