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Carpentier hits stride in CART

MONTREAL -- It has taken Patrick Carpentier six frustrating seasons to become a championship contender in the CART series.

Typically, he says with a grin, he is making his move in a year when Cristiano da Matta looks almost unbeatable.

"You know, my timing has never been very good," Carpentier said.

Going into the inaugural CART race in Montreal on Sunday, he likely will get attention, and not because he grew up in Joliet, Quebec, about 90 minutes away.

Carpentier has won two races, finished fifth in another and no worse than 10th in his past five starts. That has boosted him into a second-place tie with Bruno Junqueira, though both are 42 points behind da Matta with seven races left.

Carpentier would rather talk about his recent performance than his chances for the championship.

"I feel like I've grown up a little bit more and I'm a little bit more confident in the talent that I have," he said. "But one main thing is my engineer (Michael Cannon) is a lot more confident."

And Cannon is impressed with what his driver has accomplished.

"You can see the confidence," he said. "Pat has always been a real good race driver. He's just beginning to put everything together."

Carpentier got his first CART victory on the 2-mile oval at Michigan International Speedway in 2001, but he has excelled on road courses this season, with wins at Cleveland and Mid-Ohio. Other road-course finishes include fifth at Laguna Seca and Portland and seventh in Monterrey, Mexico.

After spending his rookie season with Bettenhausen Racing, Carpentier moved to Player's Forsythe. Tenth place in season points last year was his best effort -- until this year.

The difference: the birth of daughter Anais in 2001. Having a family has made him more serious about driving.

"Every decision I make and everything I do is very different now," he said. "Before it was whether I race or not. It didn't matter because I only had myself to feed. Now everything I do is more important for the future. It's given me the drive to run well."

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