Without any sort of hydraulic blueprints to go from, Carpenter had to get to know the fountain through trial and error — and very concise instruction from the city of Detroit.

He quickly learned he could turn the valves up and down and make things happen. But to his dismay, the fountain's upper and lower cascades were not something he could initially bring to life.

Carpenter began searching the massive system, some of it embedded in 2-foot-thick concrete walls, for the mechanical failures that had prevented the cascades from flowing for more than a decade.

After countless hours and help from trusted student interns and a handful of others, Carpenter met his goal at 4 a.m. on a Friday — the free public opening day for the Grand Prix.

"We stepped back ... me, a contractor and a security guard, looking at this majestic fountain, water rushing down for just the three of us," he said, with a faraway look in his eyes.

He was proud that summer to bring his father, who had watched the fountain constructed as a very young boy, his mother, wife and family back to the fountain for a picnic. It meant the world to his father, Carpenter said, to see the entire fountain, with its upper and lower cascades, operating one last time before he died and realize the role his son was playing in its revival. Efforts that first summer have led Carpenter on a personal crusade to restore parts of the marble fountain as needed, to keep it operating while retaining its historic integrity.

He's been on hand every year before the Grand Prix to get the fountain up and running again with in-kind support from DTE and Penske's team, and in 2012, $75,000 ingrants made through the Downtown Detroit Partnership.

Carpenter is so intent on his work that he moves his travel trailer to Belle Isle during the run-up to the Grand Prix so he can dedicate nights and weekends when he's not working at DTE to restarting the fountain and cleaning it just in time for the big race.