GEM, Patrick Carpentier - Fight On!
According to Patrick Carpentier’s website (that happens to be down at time of this writing) he and GEM team director Mike Shiplett engaged in a verbal tussle over Carpentier not qualifying at Talladega Saturday.
“I think it’s a complete lack of respect,” Carpentier wrote. “I never was shy to take the blame when I thought it was my fault, but here, everybody knows that it’s like driving in a straight line. The driver just has to keep the steering wheel straight. He should have taken a time out and calmed down before he spoke.”
As a result of the confrontation Carpentier has been given his release from GEM, but I smell a rat. A “Rat-of-Convenience” you could say.
In fact let’s call it just that a “Rat-of-Convenience” because the evidence seems to suggest that.
Consider, although Carpentier didn’t make the starting field for the Amp Energy 500 he turned in a quicker time than his teammates Kasey Kahne and Elliot Sadler who had the luxury of guaranteed spots.
Then there is the not so small matter of Carpentier being a lame-duck having been replaced in the #10 by Reed Sorenson for the 2009 Cup season.
Convenient no? Confirmation will come if Sorenson is given the ride for the rest of this year.
For the record, GEM officials have not said who will drive the car this weekend for the Sprint Cup race at Lowe’s Motor Speedway.
Ah-huh, maybe not. But if you believe he won’t be in the car before Homestead you must also believe in Santa Claus landing on your roof-top, with Barbie as Stewardess and the Tooth-Fairy a passenger and handing out thousand dollar bills for old worn-out teeth.
UPDATE: So much for my Nostradamus skills. GEM announced Mike Wallace will drive the #10 Dodge at Charlotte this weekend and A.J. Allmendinger will take over driving duties at Martinsville on Oct. 19 and for the remainder of the 2008 NASCAR Sprint Cup season.
About that “Santa Claus” thing.
Nevermind!
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Um, yeah… someone forgot to tell that guy that the easiest way to ensure you never get a ride is to blast your previous Owner/Team to hell and back.
Way to go, jackass. lol
I’m not so sure you placed the “right jack on the ass” Luke.
Tough to say without the full story, but looking at what has been printed it looks like the team director was pretty damn stupid in blaming Carpentier given his performance related to the others on the same team.
And really, of all the open wheelers that moved to NASCAR this and last year Carpentier was at or above the level of the others, with Montoya being the single exception.
Carpentier can drive fast but he hasn’t learned how to race a stock car. Nationwide and ARCA would have been a better way to go for him. Hopefully he will land somewhere because he does have talent.
Just a thought but haven’t all the Dodge Teams really sucked this season!
All Dodge teams have sucked, that’s true enough. As to your other point, it’s debatable, but given Carpentier out performed Kahne and Sadler on many occasions it’s a bit idiotic the car chief would attempt to blame him for the piss-poor results.
Carpentier did have better performances than most of the other open wheelers, it’s true. But I always felt that he had the smallest margin for error of the bunch. The combination of his age, lack of real U.S name recognition and driving the third GEM car - which Scott Riggs didn’t do much with - didn’t bode well for his success. Missed too many races early, when top performances might have helped the latter two problems. It looks to me like there was more tension beneith the surface here than we knew about. See ya Pat.