IndyCar Series driver Ed Carpenter participated in a Q&A session this week, discussing the upcoming races at Richmond, Watkins Glen and Toronto. Below are select quotes from his interview followed by "Five Questions with Ed Carpenter."Ed Carpenter
· 28-year-old competing in his sixth full season in the IndyCar Series
· Drives the No. 20 Menards Vision Racing entry
· Ranks 12th in points with four top-10 finishes in his last five starts
· Has 89 career starts, recording 25 top-10 finishes
· Enjoys home improvement projects
· Welcomed second child and first son Ryder on June 1
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Q. This will be your fifth start at Richmond, last three years you've been right around 10th: 8th, a 10th and 11th. What does it take to put together a top‑10 run at Richmond?
ED CARPENTER: To put together a top‑10 run, you just kind of have to persevere and stay out of trouble, but to be in the top five, you have to have a really good car. Last year there, I had my hands full and just had to worry more about surviving than really trying to race anybody.
And we have put a lot of work into the setup we are going there with this year, so hopefully we'll have a car that I can be competitive and aggressive and try to run up front with.
Q. You rank 12th in points, which if you can maintain or improve upon that, that would mark your highest finish in the season standing. Has the season met your expectations?
ED CARPENTER: It has not quite met my expectations. I made a couple of mistakes at St. Pete, Long Beach, where we could have had higher finishes. And then as far as our performance on the ovals, finally in Texas we had a little bit better run that we are happy about. But the other ovals really we have not been that happy with the performance we put out there; especially compared to last year, I don't feel like we have done quite as good of a job.
So we have been working really hard to try to turn that around and get things going in the right direction again. Like you said, we are 12th in points, which my goal is definitely to be inside the top 10. So hopefully we can go to Richmond this weekend and have the run that we are planning on running and get ourselves back up in the top 10.
The points are definitely very tight, and you're still able to make a pretty good move in the points if you have a good run or a bad run.So it's important to go out and try to score some points at Richmond before we get back to road courses.
Q. The IndyCar Series introduced the alternate‑tire concept on the road courses this year for the first time. What was your experience with them the first two races, and how much does it affect the strategy?
ED CARPENTER: I definitely like it. Both at St. Pete and Long Beach, the reds were worth lap time, and they worked quite well on the car in the race. I think we need to do a little work to get the balance sorted out switching between the tires. But it definitely brings an element to the race.
At St. Pete, there were guys that were better on reds at the end of the race. That made it interesting, and it seemed like Long Beach kind of the blacks were more the trend at the end of the race.We'll see how it plays out at these upcoming races.Watkins Glen will be the first time we have taken it to a permanent road course, so I'm sure that will change the dynamics again.
Five Questions with Ed Carpenter:
1. What's the biggest home improvement project you've worked on?
"I've got a long list of stuff like that. Probably the biggest was when I lived in my house in Speedway before I got started on home improvement projects, didn't really know what I was doing. I was going to re-stain the existing kitchen cabinets. My roommate at the time was helping me out with it. He went to work, and while he was gone I just changed my mind and decided I was going to redo the whole kitchen. So he got home and the whole kitchen was in the driveway basically where I had tore it all out. I didn't really know what I was getting into, but it turned out really well."
2. What is the last thing you bought at Menards?
"I was working on some plumbing stuff at my house so I bought some copper pipe and copper fittings."
3. What is your favorite meal?
"My favorite meal is probably Mexican. I really like Mexican food."
4. New York Yankees - love 'em or hate 'em?
"I'm not a big fan. Cubbies fan."
5. What is the street car that you drive?
"Right now I'm driving a Honda Pilot, and I have an Acura MDX that should be here before the end of the month."
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The 2009 IndyCar Series season continues June 27 with the SunTrust Indy Challenge at Richmond International Raceway. The race will be telecast live in High Definition at 8 p.m. (EDT) by VERSUS. The race will air live on the IMS Radio Network, XM channel 145 and Sirius channel 211. The radio broadcast also will be carried on indycar.com. The 2009 Firestone Indy Lights season continues with the Corning 100 on July 4 at Watkins Glen International. The race will be telecast at 11 p.m. on July 6.
