Patrick Carpentier - Stock Car Career

Stock Car Career

Carpentier competed in the 2006 CASCAR Super Series event at Cayuga Speedway. He started 21st in the Dave Jacobs Racing car and finished sixth. He signed on to drive a Daytona Prototype in the 2007 Grand American Road Racing Association for SAMAX Motorsport with teammate Milka Duno. He later left Samax to pursue a career in NASCAR.

Carpentier made his debut in the NASCAR Busch Series at Montreal's Circuit Gilles Villeneuve on August 4, 2007, taking the pole in qualifying and finished the race in 2nd place. Carpentier made his NASCAR Nextel Cup debut on August 12, 2007, at Watkins Glen, in the Gillett Evernham Motorsports #10 Valvoline/Stanley Tools Dodge, replacing Scott Riggs and started 40th. Carpentier led for 7 laps in the race near the midway portion of the race and wound up finishing in the 20th position. In October 2007, it was announced he would drive the #10 car full-time in 2008.

On February 14, 2008, Carpentier attempted to qualify for the 2008 Daytona 500 in the second of two Gatorade Duels. Carpentier ran in the top 10 for most of the day. Late in the race, his right front tire blew, sending him into the backstretch wall. Carpentier was running in third place of the drivers not locked in to the Daytona 500 based on owner points.

On June 27, 2008, Carpentier won his first pole for the Sprint Cup Series for the Lenox Industrial Tools 301 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. The pole was the first by a foreign born in NASCAR's top division since Lloyd Shaw (from Toronto, Canada) won the pole at Langhorne Speedway in June 1953.

On July 5, 2008, Carpentier earned his best career Sprint Cup finish by finishing 14th in the Coke Zero 400.

On August 30, 2008, Carpentier announced that he would be a free agent for the 2009 Sprint Cup Series, leaving Gillett Evernham Motorsports. Four days prior to Carpentier's announcement Gillett Evernham Motorsports had announced that they would hire driver Reed Sorenson for 2009 making Carpentier's future uncertain. On October 7, Carpentier was released by GEM. Former Team Red Bull driver A.J. Allmendinger finished out the year.

On June 9, 2009, Michael Waltrip Racing announced that Carpentier will replace Michael Waltrip in the #55 NAPA Toyota for the two road course races on the 2009 Sprint Cup schedule: Infineon on June 21 and Watkins Glen on August 9. Carpentier competed in a number of races for Tommy Baldwin Racing in events that conflict with Mike Skinner's truck series schedule.

In 2010, Carpentier ran a number of races for Latitude 43 Motorsports. In 2011, Carpentier returned to his open-wheel roots, attempting to qualify for the 95th Indianapolis 500 for Dragon Racing after former Red Bull driver Scott Speed was unable to get the car up to speed on bump day. Carpentier was unable to get the car in the race. On the stock car side, Carpentier drove a few Sprint Cup races for Frank Stoddard's team. On June 7, Carpentier announced to the Toronto Sun that he would officially retire from racing after the NAPA Auto Parts 200 at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, where he's scheduled to drive for Pastrana-Waltrip Racing.

Read more about this topic:  Patrick Carpentier

Famous quotes containing the words stock, car and/or career:

    I met a Californian who would
    Talk California—a state so blessed
    He said, in climate, none had ever died there
    A natural death, and Vigilance Committees
    Had had to organize to stock the graveyards
    And vindicate the state’s humanity.
    Robert Frost (1874–1963)

    Between here and that old car outside there are twenty-five paces. Make them. Now.
    Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)

    Each of the professions means a prejudice. The necessity for a career forces every one to take sides. We live in the age of the overworked, and the under-educated; the age in which people are so industrious that they become absolutely stupid.
    Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)