Patrick Carpentier

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

You have new messages (last change).

Patrick 'Pat' Carpentier (born on August 13, 1971 in Ville Lasalle, Quebec) is a Canadian racing driver from Quebec. He has spent 2005 driving for the Red Bull-sponsored team ran by Eddie Cheever in the Indy Racing League. Before this he spent nearly a decade in the rival Champ Car series, with Bettenhausen as a rookie but subsequently always in the team ran by Gerry Forsythe. In his early years he was prone to missing races through injuries, some of which originated off-track.

His first Champ Car victory came in 2001 at Michigan, and he then took third in the championship in 2002. 5th overall in a slightly disappointing 2003 compared to title-winning team-mate Paul Tracy weakened his position within the team, and he was briefly fired for 2004, being reinstated in a third car for the team, allegedly because of his marketing popularity in his homeland (team boss Gerry Forsythe was also a part-owner of the series).

Despite beating Tracy to third in the championship, he left the team and the series for 2005, and joined Eddie Cheever's Indy Racing League team. Due to his excellent record in oval races (which make up most of the IRL schedule but are now virtually extinct in Champ Car), he was expected to do well, but uncompetitive Toyota engines prevented any major success.

Carpentier competed at the 2006 CASCAR Super Series event at Cayuga Speedway. He started 21st in the Dave Jacobs Racing car, and finished sixth. This may mark his transition from open-wheeled cars to stock cars. He is rumored to be joining the NASCAR Busch Series in 2007 despite already announcing that he will be running in the 2007 Grand American Rolex championship of the Americas with the Samax-Citgo team.

Patrick lives in Quebec and Las Vegas with his wife, daughter and new born son.

[edit] References/External links

Preceded by
Alex Zanardi		 CART Rookie of the Year
1997		 Succeeded by
Tony Kanaan
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../p/a/t/Patrick_Carpentier_7a36.html"
In other languages