FONTANA, Calif. – Like Indianapolis Motor Speedway, Ed Carpenter feels at home on the big, wide Auto Club Speedway oval.

The CFH Racing co-owner/driver has finished first, second and third in the past three Verizon IndyCar Series 500-mile races at the 2-mile, D-shaped track, and the MAVTV 500 on June 27 presents an opportunity to reverse results. Carpenter, who drives the No. 20 Fuzzy’s Vodka Chevrolet in oval events only, has had DNFs out of his control in the Indianapolis 500 and Firestone 600 at Texas Motor Speedway.

Still, overall performance has been an issue. He’s qualified 12th and 15th.

“The big thing is just having had from Texas until now time to go through all the data and come to a better understanding of maybe what we were missing on at Indy and Texas and get more organized and come up with some conclusions and some things to try at Fontana,” Carpenter said. “I think we all feel confident that we’ll be in a better place there than what we had been for the first two ovals.

“In May you have all this track time, but you’re so immersed in it sometimes it’s hard to dig out of a hole. Then we were pretty busy all the way through Texas that just to get to this point in the schedule -- to finally get a breather to be able to slow down and really dig in to see what we’ve been doing and what we’ve been struggling with – has been helpful.”

In his 2012 victory, Carpenter found that running the high groove of the track banked at 14 degrees in the turns was to his benefit. He led a field-high 62 laps after starting fifth and beat Dario Franchitti to the finish line by 1.9132 seconds.

“It’s hard to get your car to work well in all the lanes, but that’s part of the challenge,” he said. “Then it opens your opportunities of where you’ll be comfortable in the race. In 2012, not many people were running the high groove. The past couple of years people have settled in so you have to get your car to work in other grooves to be able to avoid traffic. It presents you with options if you can figure it out.

“I don’t think the seams will be any worse. But part of what I like about that track is the added character you get from the way it is.”