CARPENTIER TURNS SLEUTH IN SECURING INDY-CAR RIDE.

Byline: Mike Harris Associated Press 

Like a good detective, Patrick Carpentier made his case by solving a mystery.

Now the 25-year-old Canadian racer has his first full-time Indy-car ride, taking the Team Alumax seat left vacant when Stefan Johansson decided at the end of the 1996 PPG Indy Car World Series season that it was time to concentrate on other endeavors.

Carpentier, who won the Canadian Formula Atlantic championship in 1992 and ran away with the Player's Toyota-Atlantic Series in 1996, had been considered one of the likely choices to replace Johansson, who had been with Tony Bettenhausen's team for five seasons.

But Bettenhausen, himself a former Indy-car driver, still needed to be won over by seeing Carpentier's talent for himself.

Bettenhausen invited Carpentier, along with Formula One test driver Alan McNish, Formula 3000 champion Jorg Muller and rising Formula 3000 star Tom Kristensen to a four-day test session at Sebring, Fla., last month.

Each driver got one day in the car. The team supplied each of them with a Reynard-Mercedes that was deliberately set up with a number of mechanical problems, ranging from incorrect front-suspension rocker ratios to misadjusted shock absorbers.

None of the drivers was told what was wrong with the car. Their ability to quickly diagnose the problems and request changes was part of the test. Each driver had a minimum of 200 miles in the car and five sets of tires.

``The first time I got in the car, I thought to myself, `How can the engine be so good and the chassis so bad?' '' Carpentier said. ``But then I realized they did it deliberately and I started to have a good time figuring out what they did, like putting together a jigsaw puzzle.

``Once we got past the problems and started working to make the car better, I felt very comfortable and was able to turn some good laps.''

``All four drivers did well in the test, but, considering that was only the second time Patrick's ever driven an Indy-car, and he was able to turn a time that was right in there with the other more experienced drivers, that says a lot about how much talent he has,'' Bettenhausen said.

So does his record.

In 1995, Carpentier, driving for Lynx Racing, owned by Peggy Haas and Jackie Doty, won two races and five poles and finished third as a Toyota-Atlantic rookie.

He easily topped that in 1996, winning nine of 12 races and eight poles on the way to the series title.

His nine victories matched the record set in 1976 by his late countryman, Gilles Villeneuve, and Carpentier also set marks of his own by winning the last eight races and poles, scoring 239 season points and earning $226,500.

Carpentier also has the distinction of being the only driver to complete every lap run during the 1996 Toyota-Atlantic season. His worst finish of the year was fourth.

``You don't have a season like that because you're lucky,'' Bettenhausen said Tuesday after naming Carpentier as his new driver. ``He won races and poles on every kind of track, including ovals. He led the most laps in the season and he set track records and fastest race laps just about everywhere.

``The guy has talent, and one of the best ways to transform our team into a winner is to hire a winning driver,'' added Bettenhausen, whose team has never won an Indy-car race.

Carpentier hopes to continue a line of talented young Canadians who have made their mark in the Indy-car series in the 1990s, including Scott Goodyear, Paul Tracy, Jacques Villeneuve and Greg Moore.

``I hope I can have the same kind of impact that those guys have had,'' Carpentier said. ``The engineer, Don Brown, who came over from (Marlboro Team) Penske, is a very smart man and the team works together so well that I know it has a lot to offer. And I also found Tony is straightforward as an owner.

``It's a very good opportunity, but I know I'll have a big learning curve my first year in these cars,'' he added. ``But I can't wait to get started.''