Carpentier To Drive No. 10 Cintas Dodge At Atlanta

Patrick Carpentier will make his fifth career start this weekend driving the No. 10 Cintas Dodge at Atlanta Motor Speedway for Gillett Evernham Motorsports. Carpentier made his first start of the 2008 season Sunday finishing 40th at Las Vegas Motor Speedway after qualifying 12th then enduring a hard hit on the backstretch after making contact with another driver.

Carpentier once again faces the daunting challenge of making the 43-car field solely on his qualifying time. He is 47th in car owner points.

DRIVE PATRICK CARPENTIER QUOTES:

OUTLOOK FOR THE NO. 10 TEAM: “We knew this wasn’t going to be easy. But the great thing about Gillett Evernham Motorsports is that we have everyone behind us. This is such a great team. Everyone is doing their best. I’ve had great guidance from my team director, Mike [Shiplett] as well as my teammates. Elliott Sadler has been really helpful to me. He has gone out of his way to talk to me about the tracks we’ve been racing at. He was great help at Daytona in learning the draft and last week at Las Vegas he gave me some good pointers. All the pieces are here to get the Cintas Dodge Charger in the top-35 we just need to put them together each week.”

LOOKING AHEAD TO ATLANTA: “Atlanta is the first track on the schedule that we haven’t tested at. This is going to be a challenging weekend for us. But we’re ready for it. I know it’s a driver friendly racetrack. You can use the multi grooves through the corners to find where your car works the best. It’s also one of the fastest tracks we go to so I’m excited. This is also the first week I’m bringing my whole family with me to the track. Both my wife and my two children will be in Atlanta this weekend. So that will make the weekend a little more comfortable for me. Having my family there is special.”

HOW IMPORTANT IS IT TO GET LAPS IN THE DODGE CHARGER: “It is. I mean, at Vegas, the way I used the brakes and the throttle and the way I drive the car in the corner was much better at the end of the race than it was at the beginning. That’s why it’s important to make these races, you know, and I was a lot smoother going into one and two and three and four and I was keeping the car under me more. Unlike at the beginning when I was really coming off both brake and throttle. It was good. The car got better, everything got better, but we just needed the points. About midway through the race at Vegas we were consistently running the same lap times at the guys in the top-10. So we’re getting there. I just need as much seat time as possible.”

CINTAS: “We are excited about having Cintas joins us this year. It might be a bit hard for fans and media to tell our car but hopefully we will be out front and easy to see for everyone.”

NOTES

Atlanta Motor Speedway