Ed Carpenter has built his team into a front-running Verizon IndyCar Series effort, and with its place firmly established in open-wheel racing, the owner/driver would like to expand into IMSA’s hottest category.

As one of Chevy’s leading programs, Ed Carpenter Racing has earned multiple race wins and Indy 500 poles since its formation in 2012, and with so many of its IndyCar rivals deeply involved in sports car racing, the Indianapolis-based outfit has identified the WeatherTech SportsCar Championship as the second series where he’d like to see ECR compete.

“The interest is there for sure,” Carpenter told RACER. “IndyCar is always going to be my emphasis, but this year has been the first time I’ve thought about sports cars and have started to look around. Relative to year’s past, where I didn’t feel we were ready to expand, but we’re open to it now and I feel like we can take the approach we use here [in IndyCar] and be successful there. You could use a similar model.”

Although ECR has been tied to Chevy in IndyCar since it was created, it’s believed Carpenter is open to engaging with brands outside of the General Motors family in order to land in IMSA.

With Team Penske returning to prototypes in partnership with Acura, Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing engaged in a long-term GT relationship with BMW, and Andretti Autosport rumored to be on the cusp of a GT program – possibly with McLaren – ECR would welcome the chance to lead a factory Daytona Prototype international or GT Le Mans project for an auto manufacturer.

“The way it’s going, it comes down to a manufacturer alignment and finding a home there,” he said. “The hardest part is letting people know you’re interested in doing a manufacturer program and starting those conversations because it would be harder to go do it as a privateer.”

Expanding into DPi or GTLM on a shoestring budget, or while having to rely on paying drivers, likely would result in diminishing ECR’s IndyCar program in some capacity with its personnel or resources. Look for Carpenter to continue searching for manufacturers in need of a championship-caliber team to make ECR’s IMSA expansion possible.

“We still have a program to develop here, and if you’re just doing sports cars on your own for the sake of doing it as an independent team, you’d be pulling something away from the IndyCar program,” he added.

“So that’s why going sports car racing really only works with a manufacturer partner. It’s something we’re looking into heavily and want to be there. It just needs to be the right situation so both programs can run at full strength.”