Ed Carpenter Racing team co-owner Ed Carpenter says that Indiana businessman Ted Gelov’s arrival as a team partner is a massive asset for the outfit as it seeks to achieve its goals of winning races, winning the Indianapolis 500, and competing for the NTT INDYCAR SERIES championship.

It was announced over the off-season that Gelov and his Heartland Food Products Group had purchased a stake in Ed Carpenter Racing. The team has a new owner and a new driver with Alexander Rossi joining the team from Arrow McLaren. Speaking during the second day of INDYCAR Content Day on Wednesday in Indianapolis, Carpenter said:

You know, I think Ted, he’s a very smart and successful guy. He’s built a business from nothing to what it is today, which is very impressive. He and his entire organization, they’re an asset to us, especially on the business side of things, that’s expanded our operation and creating new opportunities and resources that we haven’t had.

Then as we shift that towards the on-track product, I think it’s just allowing us to maybe move a little quicker, make decisions a little earlier, and be slightly more aggressive in what we’re trying to do to accomplish our goals of winning races, winning the 500, and being a contender in the championship.

Speaking about the new partners that the new ownership has brought on board to the team such as Splenda, Carpenter said:

Yeah, I think that’s really exciting. It’s something that we haven’t seen at a high level in our sport in a long time, so to be able to have some of the brands that we’re representing, especially around the Splenda brand, it’s something that pretty much everyone knows. Everyone knows what the yellow packet is and means.

From there, I think some of the opportunities that we’ll be able to see and develop, just the amount of shelves that they’re on and how we eventually are able to use that not only for our team but for the series, there’s some really exciting opportunities there that are — yeah, they’re going to be good for ECR, but as it develops and matures, it’s good for everybody, and even seeing the Andretti announcement yesterday, the more, the better.

We obviously want to be successful on the business side of things and on track, but the more success our rivals and peers have, it’s good for everybody. It’s great to see announcements coming out like that.

When asked about the departure of Rinus Veekay from the team, Ed Carpenter said that the decision was made, albeit a difficult one for the best of the team.

I mean, everything we do is a team decision and there’s a lot of conversations and a lot of thought, debate process that goes into it. Ted was a part of the team at that point, so he was for sure a part of the conversation. But it wasn’t solely one person’s call.

To go back to the beginning of the question, I have nothing but respect and appreciation for the years we had with Rinus. I still consider him a really good friend and a really talented driver that I hope will find a spot in the sport. He deserves to be here.

But for us, like you said, he had been with us five years, our longest tenured driver ever at ECR, and it’s never easy to make those decisions, but we just felt like it was time to move in a different direction.

It could have easily been Rinus and Alex instead of Christian, but we made the decision that we thought was best for our team. I’m not going to go into all the details of why and how we got to that exact decision, but I think the important thing is, in my eyes, we had five really good years together, and I have nothing but appreciation and respect for Rinus, and hopefully we’ll be competing against him.

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