PORT ROYAL, Pa. (June 7) — Being the four-time reigning DirtonDirt Virginia Driver of the Year with 116 multidivision victories since the start of 2021, contending for the Appalachian Mountain Speedweek title is a very realistic expectation for Kyle Hardy.

The problem is the Stephens City, Va., driver no longer has a chance at this year’s miniseries championship.

Unless an unexpected opportunity comes about, Saturday’s engine failure in the miniseries opener at Port Royal (Pa.) Speedway puts the 32-year-old out of commission through June 15’s finale at Bridgeport (N.J.) Motorsports Park. 

He’s ruled himself out for the remaining five races Tuesday at Path Valley Speedway Park in Spring Run, Pa., Thursday at Selinsgrove (Pa.) Speedway, Friday at Bedford (Pa.) Speedway, Saturday at Lincoln Speedway in Abbottstown, Pa., and Sunday at Bridgeport because he’s depleted of open-competition powerplants.

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“We’re done, that’s it. No motors left for us. That’s it,” a dejected Hardy said after taking the checkers in the heat race he won Saturday. “It was a lot of work this week. Took a motor out of the car, two motors out of two cars, switched them out. It just sucks.”

Pointing his Mike Hurley-owned No. 99 Rocket Chassis toward a heat race victory at the Port Royal half-mile, Hardy had been business as usual trying to secure the ninth-starting spot for the 35-lap, $5,000-to-win feature eventually won by Gregg Satterlee.

His water temperature read 225 degrees and oil temps read 240, “so it was normal on a hammer-down track.” Then he noticed something going wrong right before taking the white flag. 

When he crossed the checkers, “it started vibrating,” and that’s when Hardy knew damage had been done.

“Coming off (turn) two, or going into three about to take the white, I felt hesitant. It seemed like I was fine to that point, then all of a sudden, it was like, wham,” Hardy said. “Right at the end of the heat race, right across the checkers, I was very surprised. That’s a fairly new engine. We just got it. (Car owner Jim McBee) paid like $39,000 for it. Here it is 220 laps later, just done.”

Though Hardy had gone with Hurley’s No. 99 race machine to start the miniseries, the engine that expired was owned by McBee, the 76-year-old former racer who grew up in Baltimore, Md., and now resides in Gettysburg, Pa.

Hardy still races for Clements, Md.-based Sommey Lacey Racing in the No. 45 Rocket Chassis, it’s just the Southern Maryland team has been out of commission since last Aug. 10’s engine failure at Hagerstown (Md.) Speedway’s Nathan Durboraw and Ronnie McBee Tribute.

Hardy expects the Lacey-owned engine to be rebuilt and finally returned to his possession sometime next week, but it’d be a week too late for an Appalachian Speedweek return. And even if the engine returned sometime this week, "we’ll have to do a lot of things to get it ready.”

“I’m not going to rush it,” Hardy said. “Pretty tragic. We’ll get back and get everything cleaned up, try it again one day.”

Nine of Hardy’s 116 total victories since the start of 2021 have come in steel-block and Crate competition this year, leaving him still searching for his first open-competition engine victory of 2025. Last year, he piled up 28 victories in Super (five), Limited (10) and Crate Late Model (13) competition, including five paying $5,000 or more.

His most lucrative Super victory was $6,091 at Winchester (Va.) Speedway. He also notched $5,000 victories with the United Late Model Series at Path Valley Speedway Park — Tuesday’s next stop for Speedweek — and at Beckley (W.Va.) Motor Speedway over Zack Dohm. 

And another proud achievement from 2024 is he’s one of the final winners at East Bay Raceway Park where he topped an 89-car field last January. Hardy went under Ashton Winger with seven laps remaining to win a Crate Racin’ USA Winter Shootout feature.

But another Appalachian Speedweek where Hardy’s disappointed with the end result weighed on him upon packing up early Saturday at Port Royal.

In 2023, he was disappointed he didn’t perform better than his fifth-place points finish and last year, finishes of 10th, 13th, 16th and 13th to start the miniseries buried him 11th in points, forcing him to skip the fifth- and sixth-round events at Selinsgrove (Pa.) Speedway and Bedford (Pa.) Speedway to regroup.

He bounced back over the final two series races with third- and second-place finishes at weekly open-wheel tracks, Lincoln Speedway and BAPS Motor Speedway in York Haven, Pa. 

Hardy “absolutely” had high hopes for the week, believing that “we were gonna be good. But “something with the engine, I swear, we can never catch a break.”

Potentially finding a ride the rest of the week isn’t the issue for Hardy, who drives for the Warrenton, Va.-based Hurley, Pennsylvania-based McBee and Maryland-based Lacey team.

“The problem is, we have a bunch of cars, but just one motor,” said Hardy, who could employ his steel-block engine at quarter-mile Path Valley if he wanted on Tuesday and be semi-competitive. But those prospects are unlikely.

“We probably could, but it’s not going to qualify where we want to,” Hardy said. "It’s just not gonna be good. I’d rather not. It would be OK feature time, but we’d be so buried probably not.”

Hardy’s engine failure Saturday perplexes him because he’s not sure what he missed when tuning the carburetor before the eight-lap heat race. He knows a piston either burning up or breaking is what did him in, but through all his years of racing, he’s seldom had to second guess his engine-tuning ability.

Austin Berry and Rick Eckert also had engine issues Saturday at Port Royal. But not being the only driver still doesn’t make him feel better.

“The worst thing is, we won the heat and we were gonna start inside the top-10. Just sucks, man,” Hardy said. “The car was actually good. We made some changes. We knew we were gonna have to make some changes, just, I changed all that engine stuff and I knew it was right. I’ve done it for years. I just don’t know what caused the piston to go out of it. Like I said, just tragic.”