Carpenter Qualifies 15th for 175th Indy Car Race; Pigot Will Start 16th in First Race at Pocono Raceway

LONG POND, Penn. (August 18, 2018) – Qualifying Notes

– Ed Carpenter Racing’s pair of Fuzzy’s Vodka Chevrolets will begin tomorrow’s 500-mile race side-by-side as both Ed Carpenter and Spencer Pigot earned starting positions in Row 8. The 2018 ABC Supply 500 will be Carpenter’s 175th Verizon IndyCar Series race, which he will start from the 15th position. Pigot will start alongside Carpenter in his Pocono Raceway debut, rolling off 16th for the 200-lap race.

– A one-hour practice session kicked off the weekend and the ECR teammates continuously improved their cars throughout the session. Pigot turned 31 laps, his first ever at Pocono Raceway. His final lap of practice was his fastest at 214.220 miles per hour (mph). Carpenter also turned 31 laps with his quickest coming in at 213.355 mph.

– The qualifying order for oval events is set in the reverse order of entrant points, meaning Pigot would be the first of the Ed Carpenter Racing entries to qualify. Laps of 214.815 and 215.540 gave Pigot a two-lap average of 215.177 miles per hour. Pigot will take the green flag from the 16th position in his No. 21 Fuzzy’s Vodka Chevrolet.

– Pigot relayed feedback from his qualifying run to Carpenter, who took to the 2.5-mile triangular oval three cars after Pigot. Carpenter’s laps in his No. 20 Fuzzy’s Vodka Chevrolet came in at 215.615 and 216.437, averaging out to 216.025 mph. Carpenter’s run placed him just ahead of Pigot, giving the duo starting positions next to each other as Carpenter qualified 15th.

– As Carpenter drives exclusively at the oval events, Pocono will be his fifth of six races in 2018. He has been running at the checkered flag in three of the four oval races so far this year with a Top 10 finish in each. In addition to a runner-up finish at the Indianapolis 500, Carpenter had results of 7th at Phoenix Raceway and 10th at Iowa Speedway. The 37-year-old is the only individual in the Verizon IndyCar Series who is both a team owner and a driver. He is also one of the most experienced drivers in the field, now in his 16th year of Indy car competition. Carpenter has led at least one race in each of the last 11 seasons.

– Before earning ECR’s full-time No. 21 entry, Pigot spent two years as the road and street course driver of the team’s No. 20. His first full-time season would see him compete in a Verizon IndyCar Series race for the first time at five of the six oval tracks on the 2018 schedule, including this weekend’s venue of Pocono Raceway. Pigot had also not yet driven an Indy car the site of the most recent oval race, Iowa Speedway. He started in 18th, even falling one lap down to the leader in the early stages of the 300-lap event. However, he would flip the script and race his way through the entire field, climbing up to a second-place finish. It was the 24-year-old’s first podium finish in the Verizon IndyCar Series.

– Weather permitting, the Fuzzy’s Vodka teammates will have one final hour of practice today from 4:45-5:45 p.m. ET to perfect their race set ups for tomorrow’s race. The Verizon IndyCar Series calendar features two 500-mile races per year, the Indianapolis 500 and this weekend’s event at Pocono Raceway. The 2018 ABC Supply 500 at “The Tricky Triangle” will air live on NBC Sports Network, beginning at 1:30 p.m. ET tomorrow, Sunday, August 19.

ED CARPENTER (No. 20 Fuzzy’s Vodka Chevrolet), Qualified 15th: “We’ve made improvements throughout the day. We weren’t extremely happy when we got here. It’s quite a bit different this year, I think you’re seeing some of the guys that did tests have a little bit of an advantage. We’re working through it, we were definitely better there than we were at the end of practice 1 so hopefully it stays dry and we can keep working on it.”

SPENCER PIGOT (No. 21 Fuzzy’s Vodka Chevrolet), Qualified 16th: “We had a little bit too much understeer in Turn 1 which really hurt our speed through the other two turns. Hopefully we can solve that for tomorrow and have a good race car. I know the Fuzzy’s Vodka Chevrolet team will be working hard and we’ll keep pounding away at it!”