Merged Carpenter and Fisher-Hartman team to name Chevy (2nd Update)
Formal confirmation will come in a Wednesday morning teleconference.
Ed Carpenter's team partnered with Chevrolet the past three seasons; in that time the team owned by Sarah Fisher and Wink Hartman worked with Honda.
CFH Racing will field two cars next season, the No. 67 driven by Josef Newgarden. Carpenter will co-drive the No. 20, although his partner has not been finalized as Mike Conway, who won two races in the recently completed season, mulls European options.
JR Hildebrand, who drove an ECR car in this year's Indianapolis 500, hopes to return to the team next season, but he jokingly admitted Tuesday to wearing team gear "to pretend like I have a job."
CFH Racing is transitioning to SFHR's new race shop in Speedway. Indy Star
09/16/14 CFH Racing will make an announcement related to its 2015 Verizon IndyCar Series program on Wednesday, during a teleconference at 11:30 a.m. ET. All signs point to the team announcing they will be running Chevy engines over Honda, and confirming their driver lineup of Ed Carpenter (ovals only), Mike Conway (Road and street circuits only) and Josef Newgarden in the 2nd team car. We have updated our 2015 IndyCar Silly Season page above.
09/12/14 Last year Honda lost the mighty Penske and Ganassi IndyCar teams to Chevy, but they gained the Andretti team. Chevrolet is emerging as the most likely candidate to partner the newly-merged CFH Racing IndyCar team, with a final decision expected in the coming days rumors racer.com.
CFH is in the process of being created through a union between Ed Carpenter Racing (Chevy) and Sarah Fisher Hartman Racing (Honda). Multiple sources have confirmed Chevrolet is in advanced talks to supply engines and aero kits to the new team, although the deal is still yet to be finalized.
Co-owner/driver Carpenter offered few details, but said that he is pleased at how the new team is coming together.
"We should have the [engine] deal sorted out within a week, I think," he said. "I'm really excited. We [ECR and SFHR] are already starting to work on development plans together; combining what we were both planning to do, so it's encouraging."
Despite the ongoing discussions with Chevrolet, Honda remains hopeful of convincing CFH Racing to join its 2015roster, where it would add some needed depth to the manufacturer's stable of multi-car teams.
Should CFH Racing take the Chevy route, it will bring the 22-car full-time entries to 11 for each manufacturer, with Chevy getting more of the top teams. Cosworth still has not been able to close a deal for a third manufacturer that the series desperately needs.