Patrick Carpentier is pumped after becoming the first Cup rookie in 62 races to win the pole.
(travis dove/Globe Staff)
Carpentier captures pole - and the moment
Patrick Carpentier is pumped after becoming the first Cup rookie in 62 races to win the pole.
(travis dove/Globe Staff)
LOUDON, N.H. - What to say? At the time, Patrick Carpentier had no clue.
It mattered little to Carpentier's agent, Robert Desrosiers, who two years ago accompanied the former open-wheel driver from Montreal to New Hampshire in search of a ride on the NASCAR Sprint Cup circuit.
After making the rounds in the New Hampshire Motor Speedway garage, Desrosiers convinced Carpentier it would be a good idea to plant a seed or two by holding a press conference at the track.
"We came here with absolutely nothing," Carpentier recalled. "We started talking to NASCAR people and Robert organized a press conference and I said, 'Why are you organizing that for? I have nothing to say.' Anyway, we did the press conference and, actually, there was a lot of people and it came out pretty good. And that's what got us started on sponsorship for the [Nationwide Series debut] Montreal race. That's what started it all, actually, was right here."
Carpentier had plenty to say yesterday after he made quite a statement by capturing the first Coors Light Pole Award of his nascent NASCAR Sprint Cup career for tomorrow's Lenox Industrial Tools 301.
Although rain delayed yesterday's pole qualifications for about two hours, the 36-year-old rookie for Gillett Evernham Motorsports supplanted Bobby Labonte with a blazing fast lap of 129.776 miles per hour in his No. 10 Dodge.
Carpentier clung to the memory of hanging on the fence on the backstretch near Turn 2 at NHMS and enviously watching as Tony Stewart raced in a Whelen Modified Tour race. "I was like, 'Man, that would be fun to do,' " he recalled. "These guys, they race anything, any series, and I want to be here. And if you would have told me we'd get a pole here, I wouldn't have believed you, but it's great."
Carpentier was one of four "go-or-go-homers" who qualified among the top 10 in the 43-car field, with Chevy driver Scott Riggs (fourth, 128.976), Dodge rookie Dario Franchitti (seventh, 128.824), and
And all it took was one tour of the 1.058-mile oval at NHMS for Carpentier to earn the best seat in the house in his first Cup race in Loudon.
"The car was hooked up in [Turns] 3 and 4," Carpentier said. "I was starting the second lap and I was like, 'Oh, this one is going to be good,' when they said on the radio, 'Shut 'er down! Shut 'er down! You're on the pole!' "
Carpentier was so happy, he did a fist pump as he came down the backstretch and missed his turn-off, making another tour of the track. Was it a victory lap, perhaps? "Yeah," Carpentier said with a laugh. "That's what it was."
Although he ranked 40th in owner points, Carpentier arrived for his first Cup race at NHMS confident he would make the field. Of the 45 qualifiers, only two of the 10 drivers outside the top 35 were at risk of going home. Tony Raines and rookie Marcos Ambrose came up short.
"Honestly, I would have liked a pole last week on the road course," Carpentier said, referring to his 37th-place start and 23d-place finish at Infineon Raceway in Sonoma, Calif. "I wouldn't have been as happy as what I am now. I mean, to me, NASCAR is all [about] ovals."
When he won the pole in the Busch Series - now Nationwide Series - debut race in Montreal last year, Carpentier was concerned about being stereotyped as a "road-course guy."
"I want to do ovals," he said. "And this is what I like, what I really like, so to get a pole on the oval is unbelievable. I'm really happy."
Carpentier wrapped up his press conference when he had no more to gush about.
He arose from the dais, smiling broadly, and accepted hearty congratulatory handshakes from well-wishers. When it was pointed out how this moment had blossomed out of the press conference Desrosiers called at NHMS, Carpentier stopped to celebrate with his agent by hugging him.
"This time," Carpentier said, "we had something to talk about."
© Copyright 2008 Globe Newspaper Company.
