In recent weeks there's been plenty of great racing to take in at Hilltop as always. After that young fella from down south picked up the bounty on Corey Conley, it looked like Tyler Carpenter was on top of the world. The start of the STARS Buckeye Speedweek seemed to confirm that this rising star was more than capable of running with the best Late Model drivers to be found anywhere. Carpenter kicked off the week long series by winning the first show in fine fashion. Leading the points going into the Wednesday show at Atomic Speedway, it started to look like he'd be taking the title back home to West Virginia. However, things took a very ugly turn, or flip in this case early into the heat race. Tagging the outside wall sent the 28 machine into traffic and from there he looked allot like a pinball. Thankfully he walked away but the car was trashed. Removing it from the track might have been easier with a bucket and a broom.

This is where racers show their true character. The Carpenters are real racers, and nothing would keep him from the track. I heard some people say that since the Carpenters own Kryptonite Race Cars, they'd just roll out a shiny new ride for Tyler, but that's certainly not what happened. The crew worked overnight trying to rebuild that pile of parts in order to make the show on Thursday night at Hilltop. They didn't get it back together in time for Hilltop but he did manage to borrow a ride at the last minute and rolled through the gate as the Late Models were running hot laps. Piloting a car he'd never sat in before, and doing battle against the best to be found on dirt, it was pretty impressive to see him bring home a 6th place finish. Then it was time to rush back home to finish rebuilding his own car for the Friday night show. That show would get rained out but the rebuilt car and it's determined driver were more than ready to get back to the action on Saturday night at the very same track that started all of this mess in the first place. With the car "good but not 100%" he'd have to settle for 5th place. Not too damn shabby in the opinion of most, but not good enough for the Kryptonite crew. They'd continue to bust their asses on the car one more long night to be ready for the final event of Speedweek. This time all of their hard work would pay off as Tyler once again put an old fashioned ass whoopin' on the stout field, picking up a VERY well deserved feature win. It's not often you get such a great example of pure determination, hard work, love of the sport, and just plain raw freakin' talent. These are things that money will never be able to buy. It's in their blood and it was awesome to see it pay off in the end for such a great team. Hats off to the entire Carpenter team as well as Kryptonite Race Cars. Thank you for showing that such values are still to passed from generation to generation in this great sport!