CHEVROLET RACING IN THE VERIZON INDYCAR SERIES
101ST RUNNING OF THE INDIANAPOLIS 500
INDIANAPOLIS MOTOR SPEEDWAY
TEAM CHEVY MEDIA DAY QUOTES
MAY 25, 2017
Selected quotes from Ed Carpenter Racing drivers:
ED CARPENTER, NO. 20 FUZZY’S VODKA ED CARPENTER RACING CHEVROLET:
DO YOU GET MUCH SLEEP THE NIGHT BEFORE THE RACE? “What I hope for is that I sleep until the (track opens at 6 a.m.). The first time I wake up then I’m looking outside to see what the weather is like, look at the flags to see which way the wind is blowing and my mind gets going. Hopefully, I’ll sleep.”
STARTING ON THE FRONT ROW IS JUST THE BEGINNING, RIGHT? “It’s a 500-mile race. As long as I’ve been around here, you see people win the race a ton of different ways. You see people lose the race even more different ways. Being smart, staying in the right position, avoiding trouble, controlling the things you can control are all key. But that isn’t always enough. We’ll try to execute, put ourselves in the best position and try to make good decisions as the race unfolds, and hopefully we’ll be there at the end.”
SOME OF YOUR COMPETITORS HAVE SAID THAT SINCE 2012 IT FEELS MORE LIKE A PACK RACE AND YOU JUST NEED TO BE IN THAT LEAD PACK TO GIVE YOURSELF A CHANCE AT THE END? “The racing certainly changed with this generation car. I think some of the guys don’t know what pack racing is, No. 1. This isn’t a pack race; it’s a close race. One thing that hasn’t changed over the history of this race is you have to be with the leaders, the lead group, to be able to win it. It’s not Daytona or Talladega where someone is going to come from 15th at the end to win it in the closing laps unless it’s a unique situation like fuel mileage or something. Certainly you need to be in the top three, top five.”
WHAT DO YOU NEED FROM YOUR TEAM AND YOURSELF TO BE IN THAT PLACE AT THE END? “I think we have all the pieces to be there. We have the car. It’s comes down to execution, making good decisions and not making mistakes on track and the guys having clean pit stops. If we can do that, I expect we’ll be in the mix to win the race.”
HOW MUCH OF A LIFT IS IT BEING A LOCAL GUY AND HAVING LOTS OF FANS LOOKING AT YOU? “It makes it fun when I get out of the car. When I’m in the car I’m focused on one thing and that’s the car and what’s in front of me. There’s really not much room to think about anything else. To be embraced after a good day or bad day, I really appreciate the community here.”
WHERE DO YOU SEE THE FUTURE OF ED CARPENTER RACING? “ The next step we would take if it was there – adding a third car. I think one thing we’ve always done a good job at is not doing any more than we could do or have the resources for. That’s why we’re running two cars here instead of three this month just to make sure we can do things the way we want to do it. We’ll stick to that recipe because I think it’s worked well for us.”
JR HILDEBRAND, NO. 21 PREFERRED FREEZER SERVICES ED CARPENTER RACING CHEVROLET:
DO YOU HAVE TOOLS AT YOUR DISPOSAL TO IMPROVE THE CAR THROUGHOUT THE RACE?
“It’s all built in. There are situations where you have different settings in the car that you can change – like fuel saving maps on the rotary switches. It’s not like you get a shot of nitro, but there are definitely some games that can be played should they work out. We obviously have a lot of faith in the guys at Ilmor and what Chevy has done. Everybody is on a new spec motor coming into the weekend so there is some uncertainty how everything will stack up, but we certainly expect to be racy on Sunday.”
HOW MUCH CAN YOU LEARN WITH ONE HOUR OF RUNNING ON CARB DAY?
“You don’t have enough time to do high-level on-track research. Everybody leaves Monday with a couple of little things that they hope will make the car just a little bit better, a little bit more comfortable and give you confidence to do X, Y or Z, whether that’s running in traffic, running on your own, or at the end of a stint. Even my rookie year I think guys went out and ran 10 laps and did a bunch of pit stop practice and that was it. You’ll have the whole field out there in a big train trying to get the last little bit out of it. For us, where we qualified and how good we feel with the car the way it is now, it’s just trying to identify a couple little things that hopefully can give us a slight extra bit of performance Sunday.”
“IF THE WEATHER IS CLOUDY AND COOL, WILL THAT HELP RUNNING ON CARB DAY?
“We will tend to choose to work on things that are independent of the weather playing a role. The data these days is so good as far as adjusting for ambient conditions, how much downforce you run on the car and that sort of thing. It’s pretty easy for the teams to say, OK, you ran these wing angles on Friday but it’s going to be 10 degrees hotter on race day. There is a correlation that they can follow that they can choose where to be. It won’t play a huge role, but the more similar the conditions are the better the feel for the drivers.”
ARE YOU STILL INVOLVED WITH STANFORD’S ENGINEERING PROGRAM?
“Yes, but way less involved this year. My role was very flexible. It was as much me being there as a resident expert once a month to discuss, or give feedback, or go drive a car to create high-performing human data basically. I made a day trip there earlier in the month. It’s a cool gig, for sure.”