After claiming pole, Carpenter aims to win

SPEEDWAY, Ind. — Ed Carpenter sat on the pit wall overlooking his No. 20 Fuzzy's Vodka Chevrolet. He was waiting in line on day one of Indy 500 qualifying, feeling slightly nervous.

It's not an uncommon feeling for Carpenter, the owner-driver of Ed Carpenter Racing. Each year when May begins and the Indianapolis 500 draws near, Carpenter gets paranoid about his racecar.

He questions his car's speed. How fast is the equipment? Is it a front-row contender? Will it struggle to simply make the race?

The anxiety for a racing driver preparing to push the limits of man and machine around a 2.5 mile oval would overwhelm the common man. The competition on track is intense. Danger lurks around every corner.

"Before you go out for qualifying here, it's not a good feeling," Carpenter said.

Carpenter doesn't say much as he lifts himself off the pit wall. He walks around the front of his car before his team pushes it further up the line. He joins JR Hildebrand for discussion. Carpenter is Hildebrand's new boss, fielding his No. 21 entry in the 500.

Ten minutes pass, and Carpenter is now next in line. It's the first time Carpenter has been officially on the clock in seven months. But now he's ready to wrestle 600 horsepower around one of the world's most daunting racecourses.

As he takes the track, applause can be heard above the sound of the engine. The Indianapolis native is a fan favorite at the Speedway, and after winning the pole in 2012 the fan expectations are high.

On the track, Carpenter puts his nerves aside. A racing driver can't afford to drive while nervous or scared. Fear leads to mistakes. Mistakes leads to cars wrecking into the wall.

"I think qualifying here is one of the hardest things to do," Carpenter said.

The perennial odds are largely against Carpenter. Despite adding a second car, Ed Carpenter Racing is largely a single-car operation. He's going up against power teams owned by Michael Andretti, Chip Ganassi and Roger Penske, who have their hands in fielding a combined 12 cars.

Despite that, Carpenter's anxiety about a slow car proves to be unwarranted. He beats the big teams on Saturday and claims the pole on Sunday.

For the second consecutive year, Ed Carpenter will lead the field to green in the 98th running of the Indianapolis 500.

But that's not what he came to do.

"We come here to win," Carpenter said.

***

Carpenter felt out of place the past few race weekends.

Carpenter — the only current owner-driver in the Verizon IndyCar Series — made a career-changing decision prior to the start of the 2014 season: only drive the oval races on the schedule, allowing for Mike Conway to drive the road-course races.

It's not always easy to tell a racing driver to get out of the car. It's even tougher when he has to watch another driver get in it. But Carpenter made the move to get out of the car in the best interest of his team.

The IndyCar schedule is made of a mix of road and street courses, as well as ovals. Carpenter cut his teeth on ovals across the Midwest racing sprint cars. Conway, on the other hand, was a road racing ringer of sorts. After a few scary crashes on ovals, Conway decided to end his oval-racing career.

The partnership between the two drivers was the perfect marriage. Carpenter would handle the ovals while Conway would race the road races.

It was a career-changing decision for both men. One that caught the attention of their competitors.

"I think it was a brilliant move," Andretti Autosport driver James Hinchcliffe said. "You've got two guys that really needed each other, and so I think from a team owner perspective it was perfect."

The move instantly paid dividends.

In the second race of the season, Conway won the prestigious Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach. Conway got the drivers trophy, and Carpenter took the owner's trophy standing on the pit box.

But with IndyCar returning to Indianapolis, Carpenter is back where he feels most comfortable — the cockpit of his No. 20 Verizon IndyCar Series Dallara-Chevrolet.

"I feel like I'm back home," Carpenter said. "I don't know what I'm doing on the timing stand all the time. I'm just trying to stay out of the way, and I probably talk more than I should. But the guys on the team do a great job.

"I think I'm a better asset to them in the car than I am standing up on the timing stand."

***

The time off led to questions about what kind of racing shape Carpenter would be in once he finally got back into the car.

Sunday's Indianapolis 500 will be Carpenter's first race in seven months. The Butler alumnus finished second in the 2013 season finale last October at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, Calif.

Since that race, Carpenter spent the offseason concentrating on work within his Ed Carpenter Racing team. He worked on developing his cars and going through day-to-day duties as a team owner.

Despite the layoff, Carpenter didn't have much trouble trading his owner's hat for a driver's helmet. He qualified at 231.067 mph to claim his second consecutive 500 pole.

"I don't think that I was at a disadvantage at all," Carpenter said of his layoff. "I've done as much oval testing since the last race at Fontana as anybody. You know, we did two days at Texas and two days at Fontana. So I don't really — I didn't feel any rest. I'm always so excited to get back out on this track."

When Carpenter puts on his driver's helmet, the owner's cap gets set aside.

He had a laundry list of people he thanks for allowing him to drive, including his wife, Heather.

Carpenter says when he is out on the track, his focus turns to the driving ahead. He can't afford to be thinking about ownership and funding. When he's on the track, he's just another driver.

"When I'm driving, it simplifies things for me a lot," he said. "Just because to be prepared and to be ready to race it takes a lot of work with the team, so I've really just been trying to stay out of ownership stuff and focus on driving and trying to win this race."

***

As an owner, Carpenter knows the value of money in racing.

It's no secret that larger teams such as Team Penske, Ganassi Racing and Andretti Autosport are going to win more often because of funding for better equipment.

Since forming Ed Carpenter Racing two years ago, the organization has been a single-car operation, but Carpenter has long dreamed of expansion to compete with the dominant forced in IndyCar.

Carpenter got one step closer to realizing that dream this May with the addition of workout partner and friend JR Hildebrand for the Indy 500.

The benefit of the second car has shown itself throughout the month of May. Rain washed away a majority of the practice time leading up the qualifying, but Carpenter was able to rely on data from both of his cars to find speed like bigger teams typically do.

The results spoke for themselves. Both cars qualified in the top nine positions.

"I'm really happy we have the second car this month with the way it's gone with limited running and the rain," Carpenter said. "Having JR on the team has been a huge help. I'm happy we're in a position to have a chance to win a pole again, and at the same time I feel like we're in better shape for the race than where we were last year, too, so it's shaping up to be a fun weekend."

Hildebrand has his own infamous record at Indianapolis. He was leading the race in 2011, going into the final turn, before notoriously crashing, which left the door open for the late Dan Wheldon to pass him for the win.

Hildebrand said the relationship with Carpenter has gone well for him. He has put 2011's incident behind him and has been enjoying his time working with and learning from his new team owner.

"Until this week, I've never worked so closely with another driver," Hildebrand said. "That has made this a much easier process getting through all that stuff. I feel like we have strong equipment, strong people, and like I said, I've not worked together with another driver ever to this level."

Hildebrand's success could go a long way toward helping Carpenter secure the financial backing required to run a second car full time. Having Hildebrand as a teammate could potentially help Ed Carpenter Racing join the elite ranks of a powerhouse team in IndyCar.

"Running the second car at Indy is easier than a lot of places because you don't have to transport equipment and people, because you can shuttle it out here," Carpenter explained. Hopefully (expansion) happens this year or next year after we try to figure out a way to win the race."

***

Carpenter says winning the Indy 500 stands out above everything else.

Last season, after starting on the pole, Carpenter led 37 laps in the race — the most of any driver. But he found himself marred in traffic throughout the race. He could never make his way back to the front of the field through the dirty air, and he ultimately finished in 10th.

Carpenter was disappointed in the finish. After having the hype and excitement of starting on the pole and being able to lead, he was frustrated in the middle of the back without anywhere to go.

"We weren't bad last year. I mean we led the most laps in the race," Carpenter said. "It wasn't that our car was bad. It was more of just we made a couple decisions that I think if we could have changed it, we would have been in a better position."

With the luxury of running a second car this year, Carpenter put most of his energy on race setups during practice, despite his strong showing in qualifying trim.

He placed most of the credit for the speed in the hands of his engineers and mechanics, most of whom all work part-time.

He doesn't quite have the money to pay for a full-time staff for two cars, but he has gotten the most from his Ed Carpenter Racing team as they try to figure out a way to improve from last year's mistakes with car setups.

"When you're working on race setup, when we talk about it, you're constantly trying to find grip in the car," he said. "You're trying to find ways to make your car work in dirty air."

Carpenter won't know exactly what his car will do until Sunday. When he gets in the car, he will be racing as not just a driver but as an owner trying to have an impact in IndyCar by propelling a small team to compete with giants.

Ownership won't be on Carpenter's mind as he puts on his helmet. The mind of a racing driver requires focus at such a high level on one of the world's grandest stages.

All the sacrifice and all of what Carpenter put into his dream of building his race team will come to life as Mari Hulman George raises two thumbs up into the air as she iterates the most famous words in racing.

"Drivers, start your engines."

And as Carpenter drives off the grid and the pace laps tick away, all that matters is the race. His biggest race. Five hundred miles and 32 other competitors stand between him and racing glory.

"This is my primary goal as a racecar driver in my career," Carpenter said. "To win the 500."