Carpentier's comeback try reaches critical point

This may be judgment week for Patrick Carpentier.

Carpentier is making a racing comeback this season, in NASCAR no less, after most of his career in open-wheel racing. And he's incurably upbeat, despite numerous setbacks. But NASCAR is a performance business, and will Carpentier's numbers be enough to keep him in the seat of George Gillett's and Ray Evernham's Dodges?

Carpentier ran second in NASCAR's rain-marred Nationwide race in his hometown of Montreal last weekend, and he'll be on a road course again this weekend at Watkins Glen. He's averaging a 25th-place start and a 30th-place finish on the Sprint Cup tour, and he has made 17 of the 21 races, sitting 37th in the standings.

He's had his two best runs of the season in the past few weeks, a 14th at Daytona and an 18th at Indianapolis.

By comparison, Scott Riggs, now in his fifth season on the tour, was in the car last year, and at this point of the season he was 36th in the standings, after making 17 of the 21 races.

So what happens next?

"We're going to find that out around Aug. 15," Carpentier said. "I really hope it comes out positive.

"I think Gillett-Evernham is pretty happy. Most of the sponsors that were at our sponsor summit in Montreal last weekend were happy. Valvoline, LifeLock, Auto Value, all our sponsors seem to be happy. I hope they are happy enough to keep me for next year -- and I hope Gillett-Evernham is happy as well, because I like being here, and I like driving this car.''

This weekend's race could make or break his comeback.

"We've improved so much since the beginning of the year," Carpentier said. "There are so many things -- but patience is so important. I've learned you have to be so smooth. In qualifying you can be tough on the car and drive it pretty hard, but once you go racing you can drive it hard but you have to be really, really smooth and let the car do the work.

"Last year Watkins Glen was the first race we had led some laps. We had a good race. I went off-track a couple of times. But the car was fast.

"The last five or six races Dodge has given me a really good engine. We've had some good power coming out of the corners, and I've really been happy with the engine's performance."

Carpentier also plans to drive in Saturday's Nationwide race at the Glen, and he needs all the laps he can get.

"There are so many tricks you have to learn in these Cup cars," he said. "At Loudon, I gained four-tenths per lap by just driving differently and using different race lines (in the Nationwide race), and it actually worked during the Sprint Cup race. In the Cup race at Loudon, we actually stayed with the leaders until we had a brake problem."

Road courses, Carpentier said, are fun, even Montreal in the rain.

"I just wish the conditions would have been a little bit better, because I know that Ron Fellows (the winner) didn't have enough fuel to go all the way to the end of the race," Carpentier said. The race was stopped 60 miles short of the scheduled finish.

The Nationwide cars are different than the Cup cars, so Carpentier has tested for the Glen at Road Atlanta, "and hopefully we'll get a better result than we did in Sonoma."

Whatever happens next, Carpentier has certainly made an adventure of this NASCAR life.

"We live in the motor coach and just travel," he said. "I sit beside my driver and just watch the road and relax. I like being on the road, so it's not too bad. But NASCAR has been tougher than I thought it would be. With these cars and the schedule and the traveling, it's tough. But I'm getting used to it.

"NASCAR is the most fun I've ever had racing. I just appreciate the moment. We race in front of crowds that are unbelievable. I feel like a pretty fortunate guy."

(Contact Mike Mulhern can be reached at mmulhern@wsjournal.com.)

(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)