Ed Carpenter is looking forward to another shot at Iowa Speedway.

The IZOD IndyCar Series team owner/driver said "we just ran out of race" in the Iowa Corn Indy 250 last June.

“We should have won that race last year.  We were fast enough to win it," said Carpenter, who finished eighth after qualifying 22nd in the No. 20 Fuzzy's Ultra Premium Vodka car. "We started off the weekend not very good. We didn’t qualify well. The car wasn’t very good in the heat race. We got it figured out by the time the race came around, but we lost a lap due to bad track position at the start of the race."

Click it: Three heat races to determine lineup || Entrant list

The .875-mile, variably-banked racetrack is the fourth diverse oval in as many weeks to test teams and drivers.

"There’s still that fine balance on the setups," said Carpenter, the Indianapolis 500 pole sitter. "We saw that at Texas. If you are a little too light, as we were in the heat races at Iowa last year, it gets strung out and was very hard to pass. When the sun went down we got more grip and we put on a good show, so hopefully the show doesn’t suffer from running in the daytime.

"As long as we keep it in balance.  I am looking forward to going back to Iowa this week.”

Take a virtual lap of the fast and furious (Scott Dixon holds the single-lap qualifying record of 182.360 mph; 17.6486 seconds) Iowa Speedway oval: