Only Juan Pablo Montoya, Scott Dixon, and Josef Newgarden are two-time race winners at this point in the 2015 Verizon IndyCar Series season. Newgarden joined the other two as a multiple-time race-winner at the most recent round at Toronto as he led teammate Luca Filippi to the first ever 1-2 finish for newly-formed CFH Racing.
When Ed Carpenter and Sarah Fisher announced they would join forces for the 2015 season, the expectations were high.
Carpenter had built a solid one-car operation, with the cockpit being shared between road course specialist Mike Conway and himself. The results did not take long to show up. In the three years between its foundation and the merge, the team captured four wins, one in their first year as a team at Fontana. After a 2013 season during which the No. 20 failed to claim a win, 2014 was a breakthrough season. The team earned three wins, two by Conway, that propelled Ed Carpenter Racing to a seventh place finish in the standings with 514 points, 262 from the Illinois driver and team-owner Carpenter and 252 from the Englishman Conway.
Sarah Fisher ran a full schedule for the first time in 2012, despite owning the team since 2008. Unlike Carpenter, however, Sarah hired a young prospect to drive the team’s full-time car, the No. 67: Josef Newgarden. Newgarden had graduated to IndyCar following a dominating Indy Lights title run the year prior. The team struggled, never replicating its best result of a victory, which was earned with none other than Ed Carpenter at the wheel of Sarah's No. 67 at Kentucky. This was Carpenter's first IndyCar win and the first for Sarah as either a driver or an owner.
That was also the last time Ed Carpenter would drive a race not being his own boss. At 2012 St. Petersburg Grand Prix, the opening round of the championship, Ed Carpenter Racing was a reality.
Three seasons later, the old partners were teaming up again, in one of the most exciting and welcome moves of the off-season.
The structure of both operations was kept during the merge of the two teams. Newgarden retained the wheel of the No. 67, and Carpenter would share the No. 20 with Mike Conway, only driving at the ovals. This year, as Conway left to race in the LMP1 category of the FIA World Endurance Championship for Toyota, it is Italian Luca Filippi driving the road/street rounds on the calendar.
Expertise and intel was to be shared between the teams entering the 2015 season.
From the first moment, Fisher's team benefitted from Carpenter’s deal with Chevrolet, thus allowing for Newgarden’s car to be powered by the American engine and fitted with the manufacturer's aero kit design which proved to be in much better shape than Honda’s.
Even though their start of season was far from ideal, despite finishing with at least one car in the top-10 in the first three races of the season, the new entry was yet to post a top-five result. Then, the round at Barber Motorsports Park arrived.
That weekend, Josef Newgarden won the first race of his career and earned the first win for CFH Racing. It took only four races for the new team to go to victory lane, and the young American driver had proven that he belonged.
Also, one cannot underestimate the expertise of the “C” in “CFH” at the Exhibition Place. Last year, the Fuzzy’s Vodka No. 20 Chevrolet entry, driven by Mike Conway, claimed one of the two races of the doubleheader weekend there.
This year, Filippi, driving the same Fuzzy’s Vodka No. 20 Chevy entry, finished second, fending off two Penskes in the process, including Helio Castroneves – who was on newer tires after a caution washed away what could have been a winning strategy.
CFH may not be ready to duel at the top with the titans week in and week out, but after two wins in their very first year as a joint venture, one could easily bet it won’t be long before it.
The CFH Racing pair driven by Ed Carpenter and Josef Newgarden and the rest of the Verizon IndyCar Series field will take to Auto Club Speedway this weekend for the MAVTV 500. Follow @VAVELIndyCar on Twitter for coverage as the race nears and throughout the weekend.
Pete Liguori is a writer for the VAVEL USA Racing section. Follow him on Twitter at @PeteUSSports.
