Christian Rasmussen was given an incredible endorsement by his boss Ed Carpenter, who requested the Danish rookie to step in and take his place over the past three oval occasions and transfer the No. 20 Ed Carpenter Racing Chevy into competition for a Leaders Circle contract.
The prize cash program, devised within the 2000s the place the overwhelming majority of the season’s prize fund is break up evenly among the many prime finishers within the entrants’ championship, rewards those that place inside the highest 22 within the entrants’ standings, and with the No. 20 sitting twenty third coming into the season finale, Rasmussen was centered on ending forward of the Twenty second-place No. 41 AJ Foyt Racing Chevy pushed by Sting Ray Robb.
It was wanting dicey for the primary half of the 206-lap race as Robb held the higher hand, however Rasmussen—the 2023 Indy NXT champion—was in a position to rally and enhance to 14th on the checkered flag, six spots forward of Robb, who was coping with meals poisoning all day.
Moments after climbing from the automobile, Rasmussen was being celebrated by his crew and ECR’s management for delivering a $1 million payday for the crew.
“Good day, a very good day,” the Dane informed RACER. “I felt just like the race for me was very up and down. I didn’t actually know the place we had been, and I don’t know if we made a little bit mistake on the pit cease, which despatched us to the again, so I made up spots, after which we obtained despatched to the again. I felt like I did that just a few occasions.”
ECR requested Rasmussen to preserve gas to complete the race, and as soon as he had sufficient in reserve, it was time to go on the assault.
“As soon as we obtained kicked unfastened and I obtained off my gas quantity, we had quite a lot of tempo, and we principally put a lap on Sting Ray in a really brief time,” he stated. “We had been flying, in order that was tremendous enjoyable. There was one goal in the present day and we obtained it.”
The religion positioned by Carpenter in Rasmussen was duly rewarded. With one IndyCar oval race to his credit score, taking the reins from an oval skilled like Carpenter got here with lofty expectations.
“It’s an enormous belief,” Rasmussen stated. “I obtained introduced with the chance and went to it very humbly. I do know we had an goal, however I simply needed to do one of the best I might for the crew. It was the fitting selection. It was not a simple activity, coming to 2 new ovals with none check days or something on a brief oval, but it surely labored out fairly nicely — P11, P16 and P13 in my first three ovals in an IndyCar apart from the Indy 500 — so I’m pleased with that.”
