PATRICK CARPENTIER IN THE No. 10 BERLIN CITY AUTO GROUP DODGE WON THE POLE FOR THE LENOX INDUSTRIAL TOOLS 301.
· Carpentier won his first Coors Light Pole in his 17th NASCAR Sprint Cup Series start. His best previous start was fourth at Richmond (Va.) International Raceway (race No. 10).
· DID YOU KNOW? Prior to this afternoon, the most recent Raybestos Rookie to win a pole position in the Sprint Cup Series is Denny Hamlin. Hamlin captured the top starting spot for the 2006 Chevy Rock & Roll 400 at Richmond (62 races).
· The best previous start by a Raybestos Rookie here at New Hampshire was Jeff Gordon (third in 1993).
CARPENTIER: “It’s amazing. There’s going to be a busload of people coming to watch this one from up north this weekend. It’s great. I love this sport and I love driving these cars and I want to do it for many years. I was just happy when it was raining. It was like ‘Oh we’re going to make the race. We’re going to be in’ and it got even better. That was just really hooked up, similar to what we had at Richmond. After the first lap we’re on it so I’m pretty happy.”
WHAT WILL YOUR THOUGHTS BE ON HOW YOU RUN THIS THING? “For us, we’ve got to finish every race in the top-20. We need to put the car back in the top-35. I’m going to lead these guys on the green flag and hopefully I get to stay there for a while. We’ll go back and forth in the race but the important thing for us is to finish this race and get some points and get that car closer to the top-35.”
COMMENT ON YOUR LAP. “It was great. It was good this morning in practice and we made a few changes for this afternoon and I mean the car was hooked up in three and four, just brake in the corner and got right back on the throttle and stayed wide-open all the way to the start finish line. I starting the second lap and I was like ‘Oh this one is going to be good' and he said ‘Shut ‘er down, shut ‘er down, that’s good enough!’ I’m pretty happy.”
HOW DOES WINNING THE POLE TODAY STACK UP TO YOUR OTHER ACCOMPLISHMENTS IN RACING? “It’s the biggest thing in my career by far. I want to stay here. I lived in the U.S. for a long time and my kids are born here and we go back and forth from Montreal to the U.S. and this is what I want to do. I’ve always enjoyed it and since I’ve been here I love driving these cars and I realized I never really enjoyed the other things I did before. For me, that’s where I want to be and to get a pole today is the biggest thing in my career because I enjoy driving these things so that’s great.”
THIS TRACK IS JUST FOUR HOURS FROM HOME. THERE ARE A LOT OF PATRICK CARPENTIER SUPPORTERS IN THE STANDS. “That’s going to be great. We need to bring more fans, new fans, to racing and if it fills it up on Sunday you’re going to see busloads of people coming down. That’s what we want to see. We want to keep growing NASCAR. It’s a great sport and hopefully we keep doing that.”
CARPENTIER PRESS CONFERENCE
“I was going for the second lap and I was hoping this was going to be a little bit better and I was hoping I was going to be in the race and he said ‘Shut 'er down, shut 'er down you’re in. You’re on the pole. That was great. We’ve got a local sponsor this weekend with Berlin City Auto Group. They’ got dealerships here in New Hampshire and Vermont so it’s great. It’s a good thing. I’ve got also thank Dodge because we have a good engine and they give me good engines to qualify to make sure that we made the show and this weekend we’ve got a really good one. That’s what I told them this morning. I said this weekend has got a good one in there so I’ve got to thank these guys and everybody, Valvoline and LifeLock that’s been on the car this year because without them I wouldn’t be here. I want to be here for a while so this pole position is great.”
DID YOU WAIT ON PURPOSE TO WIN A POLE SO CLOSE TO YOUR HOME? “It’s amazing. It’s really amazing to be close to home. There going to be busloads of people coming down here and that’s what the objective is, to grow the fan base of NASCAR here and to bring more people in. A lot of people in Canada are starting to be fans so hopefully on Sunday I get to stay there for a while but that’s going to be the hard part. I’m enjoying this today. It’s great. I have one story that I have to say. We came here a couple of years ago because I wanted to race NASCAR and had been trying for a while, been trying to get in the Gong Show and it didn’t work out. We came here with absolutely nothing and we started talking to the NASCAR people and Robert [his agent] organized me a press conference. I said ‘What are you organizing that for? I have nothing to say.’ Anyway we did the press conference here and there was a lot of people actually. It came out pretty good and that’s what got us started and got us started on sponsorship for the Montreal race and that’s what started it all, actually, was right here
that press conference on the other side. It’s the first time it went out and that was two years ago. If you would have told me in two years, I remember we were by the fence down at the back and I was holding the fence watching Tony Stewart race the late model on Saturday or something like that. I was like ‘Man that would be fun to do. These guys, they race anything, any series and I want to be here. And if you would have told me we got a pole here I wouldn’t have believed you but it’s great.”
HOW MEANINGFUL IS IT TO BE ON THE POLE HERE TWO YEARS LATER AND TO BOLSTER THIS SEASON THAT YOU’RE HAVING? “Honestly, I would have liked a pole last week on the road course. I wouldn’t have been as happy as what I am now. I mean, to me NASCAR is all ovals. I’ve always loved ovals and always wanted to race on the ovals and when they told me if you want to make a good impression go on the road course in Montreal. I said ‘Are they going to label me as a road course guy? I want to do ovals.’ And this is what I like, what I really like so to get a pole on the oval is unbelievable. I’m really happy. Hopefully it helps for me to stick around for a few years because I enjoy the sport. I was at the exit of corner two looking at the races and practice and stuff and we were like man, that would be great to be driving one of these and we’re here now so that’s good.”
CAN YOU PINPOINT WHERE THE PROGRESS HAS BEEN FOR DODGE THIS YEAR? “It’s been amazing. We tested all winter, tested really hard and Kasey and Elliott did a lot of things to the car and it’s teamwork. Ray has organized the team and put some people in place and with Mr. Gillett buying the team and focusing on the sponsorship side of it and having some guys on the technical side of it everybody kind of does his job more than having…it was a lot. For Ray to do everything with sponsors and this and that, the sport has grown too much to do that and now Ray comes in and helps and gives me some tips and different things. And Kasey and Elliott really work together well. These guys, as soon as I find something on the car that’s good I give it to them. But I’ll be honest with you, more often it’s them that’s giving it to me for now. But in the future we hope to give them some more. It’s been amazing. Like from last year for me when I came in at Phoenix there was not that much communication with the team. It was like three single-car teams in one three-car team. This year it’s really truly starting to be a three-car team and they’re really working for the guys and we’ll get meetings together and everything. The team is just coming together. It’s been fun to watch. I mean, I came in at the right time last year. Everybody struggled and they picked me up and the team is coming back up. I’m really fortunate.”
COMPARE THE POLE HERE VERSUS THE POLE AT MONTREAL. “For me the answer is that Montreal wasn’t as exciting as this one because if I would have qualified sixth at Montreal you would have ne ver seen me in a Sprint Cup car later on so that pole meant a lot to us when you had to run top-two or top three to make a good impression there. By getting that pole at Montreal we knew we had part of it done so we’re really excited about this one here and Montreal. Both of them were very exciting because it’s my first one on ovals here. It’s pretty amazing. And the one in Montreal was the first one I was hoping of many. Both of them were good.”
COMMENT ON QUALIFYING AFTER THE RAIN DELAY. HOW MUCH DID THE TRACK CHANGE? “It has nothing to do with the track [laughs]. I’m joking. The track came in and we kind of knew it. My chief mechanic actually said that ‘You know the track is going to be really sticky, so if we play our cards right you’re going to have a good car and it’s going to be hooked up.’ But for us it doesn’t really matter because the go-or-go-homers are all at the same time so you’ve still got to beat these guys out. I never thought the track would be as good as running up front and it definitely had more grips. The rain cools it down very quickly and it was about 105 [degrees] in the afternoon, something like that, and it was probably down to 70 degrees later so that gives us a lot of grip. But don’t talk about that, it’s just between you and me [laughs].”
DID YOU FEEL A SENSE OF URGENCY TODAY WITH THE RAIN OR WERE YOU CONFIDENT? “We were talking with these guys earlier on that if it rains, you’re in, so for us the first objective is to be in the race. I never thought today we’d be so far ahead up front. I like to qualify. I always have and I like to qualify on the oval but it’s so risky if you are a go-or-go-homer. If you make a mistake on that lap you’re going home so it’s a lot of pressure. And when you have to qualify it’s a lot more pressure. I was like ‘We’re in the race so we’re good. We’re going to be here in the show on Sunday.’ But I never it would be that much up front. I was trying to focus on the lap and the process. I sit in the car early and do the lap in my mind and try to improve it from practice and try to do that lap in qualifying. But it qualifying I had in my mind a 29.7 so I was off a little bit but usually I’m pretty close. I always try to get the lap I need to make the show but the track helped us, too.”
HOW DO YOU PLAN TO HOLD THE LEAD ONCE THE RACE STARTS? “Somebody asked me ‘Are you going to lead to the green flag?’ I said ‘You bet I’m going to lead the green flag.’ I don’t know how long I’m going to stay there but I’ll cross start finish at least I hope. It’s going to be tough. It was like Richmond. We qualified out the front and then we start moving back so we’re going to work on the race setup tomorrow and I think we’ve still got some new tires to work with so that should help for the race setup. We’ve been working on it. It takes some time. These guys, they’ve been doing it for many, many years and it usually takes me a little bit to get the track in race mode and how the car needs to be driven, which line and where with the traffic and stuff. We have the intention of staying there more, fighting it a little bit more. Tony Stewart came a couple of weeks ago in the trailer and gave me a bunch of tricks for the restarts and talked to me for a while there. So I’ve had a lot of help since Richmond so hopefully it pays off. The main objective is to finish top-15, top-20. If we do that we move on to the next one, we got closer to the top-35 so I still got to keep that in mind. It’s not like staying up front at all costs. If we’re good enough to do it we’ll stay there. If not, we need the points.”
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