Ed Carpenter’s team visited the podium at Barber Motorsports Park most recently in 2016 with Josef Newgarden. The owner/driver hopes to add a new chapter to Ed Carpenter Racing’s history at the road course located just outside of Birmingham, Alabama with young Rinus VeeKay who stormed to pole on Saturday and sent a reminder that ECR is far more than a group of oval racing specialists.

“It’s kind of been funny because if you look at the results, they haven’t been great this season, but I feel like our performance has been stronger than last year and it’s especially good to get some early success here again on a road course with Rinus,” Carpenter told RACER. “We had one year on the podium with Joseph but [the] past few years – Barber has not been a strong place for us so we came and tested here and clearly it’s been good for us and it’s good to show strength [at] multiple venues.”

Carpenter would love nothing more than to see VeeKay turn his pole into a win during the 90-lap race and use it as a springboard into May for the three-car operation.

“Our road course history has been good, but we’re trying to add more to it and hopefully we can carry the momentum from this pole through tomorrow,” he said. “Going into the GP of Indy – [It’s] a place where we always feel good and confident so hopefully we can head into the month of May with some momentum.”