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QUALIFICATIONS COMPLETE FOR LAST OVAL RACE OF 2019 NTT INDYCAR SERIES SEASON

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Spencer Pigot Qualifies 13th, Ed Carpenter Will Start 17th in Bommarito Automotive Group 500

MADISON, Ill. (August 23, 2018) – Qualifying Notes

– Qualifications have been completed at WWT Raceway and Ed Carpenter Racing is now focused on this evening’s final practice as preparations continue for the Bommarito Automotive Group 500. Spencer Pigot will start 13th in tomorrow night’s race while team owner Ed Carpenter has qualified 17th. WWT Raceway, previously known as Gateway Motorsports Park, is the home to the final oval race on the 2019 NTT IndyCar Series calendar.

– Qualifying order on an oval is set by the reverse order of entrant points, meaning the ECR Chevrolets would qualify one right after the other. Carpenter was out first, turning laps at 24.7471 seconds and 24.8850 seconds. His two-lap average was 181.334 miles per hour, faster than his best single-lap speed from Practice 1. It would give him the 17th starting position on the grid.

– Pigot took to the 1.25-mile oval immediately after Carpenter’s run. His two-lap average speed came in at 183.211 miles per house after laps of 24.5837 seconds and 24.5399 seconds. Like Carpenter, Pigot also improved his time from Practice 1. Pigot’s best single-lap speed increased over a mile an hour in between the two sessions and he landed 13th on tomorrow night’s starting grid.

– Carpenter and Pigot will have one final hour of practice this evening from 8:15-9:15 p.m. CT. The session will include the opporunity for the No. 20 SONAX Chevrolet crew and the No. 21 Autogeek Chevrolet crews to practice hot pit stops. It will be streamed live via INDYCAR Pass on NBC Sports Gold.

– As Carpenter drives exclusively at the oval events, the Bommarito Automotive Group 500 will be the finale of his 17th season of NTT IndyCar Series competition. In addition to Pocono, ECR’s leader has raced at Texas Motor Speedway, Iowa Speedway and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway this year. Carpenter continued to show his prowess at IMS, starting on the front row of the Indianapolis 500 for fifth time in the past seven years. He added to his tally of solid “500” results by finishing 6th, the best of ECR’s three-car lineup.

– WWT Raceway is the second of two short oval races on the NTT IndyCar Series calendar; Iowa Speedway was the first. For the second year in a row, Pigot raced to the front of the pack at Iowa and gained the most positions of all competitors. His 5th place extended ECR’s streak of Top 5 finishes at Iowa to seven consecutive years. The result matched his best of the season as he also finished 5th at the IMS road course. Two weeks after INDYCAR Grand Prix, he would start a career-best 3rd in the Indianapolis 500 and go on to lead the race. This season, Pigot has earned career-best starting positions at each type of track the series races on – ovals, road courses and street circuits.

– While Carpenter checked off a milestone last weekend; Pigot will reach one this weekend. Carpenter’s 6th place at Pocono on Sunday was the 50th Top 10 finish of his Indy car career, even as he has only competed on ovals since 2014. Pigot will be making his 50th Indy car start with Ed Carpenter Racing this weekend. Since stepping up to the NTT IndyCar Series in 2016, all but four of Pigot’s starts have come with the team. Aside from Carpenter, Pigot is ECR’s longest-tenured driver.

– The NTT IndyCar Series is currently in a string of three back-to-back races on three different types of circuits, the second of which is the Bommarito Automotive Group 500. Coverage of tomorrow night’s 248-lap race will begin at 7 p.m. CT on Saturday, August 24.

ED CARPENTER, No. 20 SONAX Chevrolet, Qualified 13th: “We really have gotten better as the day has gone on, but where we unloaded was too far outside the window. We used up a lot of time in that first practice correcting that. During my qualifying run, I bottomed a little too hard on the second lap and got loose in Turns 3 & 4. We’ll have to work our way through the field tomorrow night.”

SPENCER PIGOT, No. 21 Autogeek Chevrolet, Qualified 13th: “It was tricky there in Turns 1 & 2. There was oil dry down right there at the bottom of the corner where you want to be. It was a difficult run, it just felt like the whole car lacked grip all of the way through. We definitely made some improvements from practice to have a solid run. We’ll see what we can do tomorrow.”

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