Carpentier hopes Montreal the start of a second career

One minute, Patrick Carpentier was washing tools used in his Busch debut in Montreal. The next he was being whisked to North Carolina, where he met new teammates and was fitted for a seat for his first Nextel Cup start.

The former open-wheeler's runner-up finish in Saturday's event at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve earned him a full weekend of work at Watkins Glen, where he will pilot Armando Fitz's Busch car on the New York road course before strapping into the No. 10 Dodge of Gillett Evernham Motorsports for Sunday's main event. It's but another step toward what the former Champ Car driver hopes will be a gradual progression into NASCAR, a discipline he's tried to break into for two years.

Beginner's luck?

Patrick Carpentier had an upfront view for much of his first NASCAR start. He started on the pole, led three times for 14 laps and finished second.

• Video: Carpentier runner-up

"It's been hard work," said Carpentier, who turns 36 next week. "We've been knocking on doors for quite some time. I have been to quite a few NASCAR races, and the one in [Las] Vegas also, and it finally worked out. We had one shot at it for that race [in Montreal], and it paid off. We'll see how it goes this weekend, and hopefully it goes well and it will keep going."

It all follows what Carpentier's manager, Robert Desrosiers, called a "fairy tale" weekend in Montreal, where the Quebec native won the pole and spun celebratory doughnuts in the grass after finishing second behind Kevin Harvick. Over the last 15 laps, he said, he was having so much fun he found himself laughing in the car. But the days preceding the race weekend were hectic, as Carpentier and Desrosiers worked to pull money and sponsorship together in what they knew was a one-shot deal in Fitz's No. 22 car.

Fitz had mentioned the possibility of giving Carpentier another chance at Watkins Glen, but the driver still awoke on Monday with no concrete plans. Desrosiers spent the morning fielding a flurry of calls, first from Fitz and then from Sammy Johns and Rick Russell of the newly formed Gillett Evernham team. GEM wanted a road racer to spell usual driver Scott Riggs in its No. 10 car, and first choice Boris Said wasn't available. Would Carpentier be interested?

Desrosiers finally reached his driver cleaning tools in his shop. "Are you standing up or sitting down?" he asked him. Desrosiers told him to sit, and then broke the news that Fitz wanted Carpentier back in the No. 22 for Watkins Glen. As the driver celebrated, the manager stopped him. "The next thing you don't have a clue about, buddy," Desrosiers said.

The news of the GEM ride left Carpentier, a multi-race winner on the Champ Car circuit, overwhelmed. Soon he was on an airplane to Charlotte, where on Tuesday he was fitted for a seat and renewed acquaintances with Gillett, who also owns the Montreal Canadiens hockey team. The two had known each other since Carpentier's Champ Car days, when the driver -- always wildly popular in Quebec -- would occasionally drop the puck at a Canadiens game or help with other promotional activities. As part of a news conference prior to the Montreal race, Carpentier was among a few drivers given a Canadiens jersey with his name on the back.

It seemed too good to be a coincidence, the driver from just outside Montreal being called upon the same day the owner of the Montreal hockey franchise bought into the Evernham race team. But it was. According to a team representative, CEO Ray Evernham still maintains control of the organization's competitive aspects. Desrosiers' negotiations were with team president Russell and competition director Johns, not with Gillett.

"He was very happy to see Patrick again, but I cannot say that he had any say in it," Desrosiers said. "I don't think it would have hurt, but I think it basically came from the people at Evernham who decided who put a road racer in the car at The Glen."

For Carpentier, Gillett's involvement is an added bonus.

"Maybe things happen for a reason," he said. "So hopefully, it will keep going. But for me, it's the same thing. I don't really look too far, but I want to do a good job this weekend. I'll focus on that and drive the car like I did in Montreal. I had such a good time, and I'm a believer in if you have fun and enjoy what you do and have fun at the wheel, it always turns out to the best. That's all we'll do this weekend."

He's been learning on the fly. Carpentier's experience in full-bodied, NASCAR-style stock cars is limited to a brief stint in a Canadian series, a test for the Fitz team on a road course in Kershaw, S.C., and Saturday's race in Montreal. He wanted to make his debut on an oval, but former driver and NASCAR official Brett Bodine convinced him to begin where he could make the strongest mark. For the Montreal race, the Fitz team gave Carpentier a primer on everything from pit lane to restarts to communication. He broke a gearbox from shifting too early, a casualty of the learning curve.

Friday's practice at Watkins Glen will mark his first laps in a Nextel Cup car. By now he was supposed to be semi-retired, living and working on a real-estate career in Las Vegas, dabbling in a little sports-car racing on the side. Then came Montreal. Next is Watkins Glen. Fitz has promised to put him in a car for a Busch race on an oval track, although exactly which one hasn't yet been determined.

"He wants to go and drive on ovals. Patrick knows road courses, but most of the experience in his career was on oval tracks. He loves ovals, and that's what he wants to do," Desrosiers said.

"What we would like is to be able to get with a really good team next year and do a full season in Busch. That would be exceptional. We'd be really happy to do that, and maybe to do a partial schedule in Cup also, then the following year do a full season in Cup. That would be the ideal solution. Is it going to happen? I don't know."

But the prospects are suddenly more realistic than they were just six days ago. And selling real estate in the Nevada desert doesn't seem as fulfilling as it once appeared.

"At one point I was kind of like, that's kind of like semi-retirement, I'll do the Rolex and that's it," Carpentier said. "Then this Montreal deal came, and we had this result in Montreal. Believe me, I'm not going to say no to anything that comes back, especially with great teams like Armando Fitz, Fitz Motorsports, and Evernham Motorsports. I'm never going to refuse that. It doesn't matter if I'm retired, semi-retired, and if I have to run there to do it, I will. I am looking forward to it. Hopefully it'll be a second start of a different career."