West Virginia Motor Speedway
Notes: Patched-up engine hampers Carpenter
By Kevin Kovac
DirtonDirt senior writer
Tyler Carpenter (28) leads early in the first semifeature. (heathlawsonphotos.com)
MINERAL WELLS, W.Va. (Oct. 17) — For the first time in Tyler Carpenter’s adult racing life the ARP Dirt Track World Championship is at his hometown track. West Virginia Motor Speedway’s reconfiguration into a much smaller third-mile oval even greatly increases the odds of success for the budget-minded racer from nearby Parkersburg, W.Va.
But after Saturday’s preliminary program that kicked off promoter Carl Short’s 46th annual crown jewel event, the 36-year-old Carpenter stood in the pit area trying to put a happy face on an outing that went from promising to disappointing.
“Rough night,” Carpenter said while holding his young son in his right arm, “but I still have fun.”
That was a noble, optimistic outlook following the struggles Carpenter experienced. He timed well in his qualifying group (third-fastest), won the night’s first heat and led laps 1-9 of the first 25-lap semifeature — all very positive occurrences — but he also struggled with mechanical woes that caused an overheating engine and two feature scrapes that ultimately left him with a battered car and a 24th-place finish.
“We showed some speed and it was cool just to be able to compete with these guys for a little bit,” Carpenter said. “So it just sucks it ended the way it did. But we come here on a prayer, really, with just a band-aided up motor. We was hoping to even just get to qualify, let alone finish the night out. Honestly, Im just pleased to run as good as we did.”
A $100,000-to-win race in Carpenter’s backyard is certainly a thrilling opportunity, but his expectations were undoubtedly tempered by the condition of the powerplant underneath the hood of his Kryptonite Chassis. He didn’t exactly enter the action loaded for bear.
Carpenter said his engine, which is already effectively “lapped out” from heavy use, was “burnt between the cylinders” in competition last week. Since “we ain’t got nothing else ready,” he had to patch up the piece the best he could.
“I had it all welded up and the guy who builds my motors, Kurt Isner, he resurfaced the head and everything, put a couple valves in it,” Carpenter said. “Obviously, I kept the motor in the car, and I took a MIG welder and welded between the cylinders, welded it all up, and took a grinder and ground it down and used the feeler gauge and got it close, or what I thought was close enough.
“It must have worked because it’s still running. Just everything else was testing it, you know?”
Carpenter had a fan belt break during hot laps and spike his engine temperature, but his crew fixed made repairs. The car began wafting smoke during his drive to victory in the first heat, however, when a fan blade came apart, which resulted in a large cloud of steam enveloping his machine when he stopped on the inside of the homestretch for post-heat winner’s interview with FloRacing pit reporter Chris Moore.
Once again Carpenter fixed the problem and he went on to lead the early laps of the semifeature. But smoke was still visible from his car as he set the pace, and after he ceded command on lap 10 to eventual winner Ricky Thornton Jr. of Chandler, Ariz., he found himself in more trouble.
First, on lap 13, Carpenter had his car’s left-rear bodywork crumpled by contact with Benji Hicks of Mount Airy, N.C., who spun between turns one and two as Carpenter sped away.
“Literally, it just felt like I tugged on something,” Carpenter said. “I didn’t even know what it was. I mean, I seen somebody, but I didn’t know it was Benji. And then the yellow come out, and then I see where Benji got sent to the tail, too, and that sucks, because me and him are pretty good to each other. Benji’s a really good dude. I didn’t want anything happening to him either.”
Shortly thereafter, on a second lap-13 restart, Carpenter, running third, went on a twirl of his own in turn one after a slight tap from behind by eventual runner-up Dillon McCowan of Urbana, Mo. He absorbed a couple hits as he slid sideways.
“I just got all wobbled up on that restart,” Carpenter said. “I got down in there and I just tried to just get down middle-bottom, and when I slowed down the guy behind me bumped me or hooked me or whatever just enough to knock me sideways and I couldn’t gather it up.
“Basically all the driver’s side (was damaged), just cosmetic stuff, I think, and the front bumper. I just wasn’t going to try to come back up through there and tear stuff more stuff up.”
The DNF put Carpenter out of the mix for one of the 18 locked-in berths for Sunday’s 100-lapper, so he’ll have to hustle forward from the eighth starting spot in the second B-main to make the fourth DTWC in 12 career attempts. He knows the task will be difficult, but at least he has more hope that if the race was held on the old 5/8-mile WVMS track or even the half-mile Eldora Speedway in Rossburg, Ohio, that hosted the event from 2023-25.
“I love Eldora, but these little tracks makes it easier for a guy like me to compete a little bit,” said Carpenter, whose previous DTWC starts came in 2016 and ’17 at Portsmouth (Ohio) Raceway Park (finished 12th and 11th) and ’23 at Eldora (finished 19th after leading nine laps). “It’s obviously not easy by no means anymore, but it just gets me on a little better playing field with these guys.”
Hicks’s headache
Benji Hicks thrust himself firmly into the mix early in Saturday’s first 25-lap semifeature, moving forward from the sixth starting spot to reach as high as third. Locking into Sunday’s 100-lap headliner in his first-ever attempt at the Dirt Track World Championship seemed well within his grasp.
But the 31-year-old driver tumbled from contention on lap 13 when contact with Tyler Carpenter sent him spinning between turns and two. He twirled around and continued without coming to a complete stop, but he had to restart at the back of the pack because the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series does not use a “blend” rule for such situations.
“Me and Tyler drove off into one there, and I was on the bottom … it was just a racing deal,” Hicks said. “His left-side door and quarter caught my right-rear quarterpanel, and when that grabs you’re just along for the ride.
“I cut a complete 360 and, I mean, it’s my fault,” Hicks said. “Nothing towards the Lucas Oil Series, but I thought there was a blend rule, so when I started to spin I just held it wide-open, cut a 360 and blended back in. I mean, I had lost a couple of spots, but that’s my fault, I guess, for not paying attention. I thought the blend rule was still a thing and obviously it wasn’t and they sent me to the tail.”
Making his third start of the season at WVMS — he finished 19th in May 3’s Valvoline American Late Model Iron-Man Series event and ninth in Sept. 6’s Hillbilly Hundred — Hicks salvaged a 14th-place finish but was left with repairs necessary on his car’s right-rear and left-front corners.
“It’s definitely disheartening,” Hicks said. “It’s just me more misfortune, which seems to be the pattern of our season. I was telling somebody the other week, it’s the fastest year that I’ve ever had with the least amount of wins.
“I think we had a top-three car, or if not, at least a top-five car. I mean, I know the track ended up moving around there later in the feature, where I was just mainly up top by myself there at the beginning, but when I did go to the back I was able to move around and kind of see what we needed to work on.”
Hicks tried to look on the bright side.
“For a home-built chassis, this Double Nickel has been fast all year, and to run with these guys like we have been, it makes me tickled to death, especially for the future.and things that we've got moving forward,” Hicks said. “I just hate we’re not going to be locked in, but we'll see where we stack up for a B-main tomorrow and hopefully we’ll make it in. You make it in for a 100-lap feature, anything can happen.”
Scoring improvisation
Typically time trials are a smooth-running operation for Lucas Oil Series officials. That wasn’t the case on Saturday.
About midway through the 68-car qualifying session, a problem flared up with the electronic transponder scoring system. The transmission of the results to the scoring computer in the tower — overseen by Ashley Schwallie, the wife of tour director Rick Schwallie — malfunctioned and then stopped completely.
What followed was an extended delay in qualifying as Lucas Oil officials scrambled to figure out the cause of the trouble and enact a fix.
“We changed just about everything,” assistant series director Jeremy Shields said. “Computers, wires, cables — everything.”
Shields said the source of the problem appeared to be the cable connecting the transmitter box near the flag stand to Ashley Schwallie’s scoring computer in the tower at the top of WVMS’s terraced hillside seating. As a result, Lucas Oil officials hastily moved the scoring computer — and Ashley — to a table that was set up just behind the flagstand.
Ashley spent the remainder of the racing program keeping tabs on the electronic scoring from her new location. There were no further transmission problems — well, aside from Ashley and her equipment having to be out in the elements on a cold night that saw temperatures steadily drop through the 40s.
“It’s a blanket and Hot Hands night,” Rick Schwallie said of his wife.
At the completion of Saturday’s action, Ashley sat inside the Lucas Oil Series operations trailer warming up. Her jacket was also covered with dust from the track’s red clay as she expressed hope that a fix will be made for Saturday’s finale so she’ll be able to return to the better working conditions of the tower.
