For many years, Cody Brightwell barely registered on the radar of the racing community at his hometown’s Tyler County Speedway in Middlebourne, West Virginia. Last year, he finally broke through to victory lane for the first time in any type of race car. Now, everyone’s talking about Brightwell. With three consecutive UMP modified feature wins, he shoots for number four this weekend.
“This is all new to me, man,” Brightwell, 28, said. “I just had one win. Period. I’m not used to winning. Now, I have three wins in a row.”
The driver who works as a pipeliner began his career in Tyler County Speedway’s Hot Mod division seven years ago.
“I always loved racing,” said Brightwell. “I never had the opportunity to race because we didn’t have the money to do it. When I finally got a good job, I had the finances to race. I started out small, racing for myself.”
Brightwell then graduated to a sport mod, and then three years ago got the opportunity to drive a modified.
“After I had some experience, my cousin, Doug Carson, let me drive his modified,” Brightwell said.
These days Brightwell races with good equipment and a robust crew, thanks to Carson. However, Brightwell’s season turned a corner when another racer provided some advice.
“We were doing great early in the season, but seemed to fall off a bit,” said Brightwell. “If it wasn’t for us spending an evening with [super late model] driver Kyle Thomas, we wouldn’t have been running so well. Thomas enlightened me on some setup options I didn’t know about.”
Being the man to beat certainly bolsters a racer’s confidence, but also ups the stress, according to Cody Brightwell.
“Sure, I am a little nervous,” Brightwell said. “It’s the Dickson Classic [this weekend]. There’s $1,500 to win. Stiff competition will show up from all over the Ohio Valley. That money will lure them in.”
Mike Adaskaveg has written hundreds of stories since the website’s inception. This year marks his 54th year of covering auto racing. Adaskaveg got his start working for track photographer Lloyd Burnham at Connecticut’s Stafford Motor Speedway in 1970. Since then, he’s been a columnist, writer, and photographer, in racing and in mainstream media, for several outlets, including the Journal Inquirer, Boston Herald, Stock Car Racing, and Speedway Illustrated. Among Adaskaveg’s many awards are the 1992 Eastern Motorsport Press Association (EMPA) Ace Lane Photographer of the Year and the 2019 National Motorsports Press Association (NMPA) George Cunningham Writer of the Year.
