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Barkley makes it a dozen The largest drag bike field of the year descended on Castrol Raceway for the CMDRA’s season finale September 10-11th. Like many racers, Ethan had his sights set on winning not only the event but more importantly the coveted #1 plate in both Street and the Pro Street classes. The Pro Street championship was decided coming into Edmonton since Ethan accumulated enough points to secure the title already. Since the pressure was off, the team took this opportunity to try out some outside of the box tune-ups. Qualifying went great until the track computer decided to have a major hick-up during the second round, Ethan’s best pass of 7.68 was not recorded. He was given a re-run but was unable to duplicate the pass, and settled for second spot with a 7.749 @ 187mph, just behind Rob Aston’s 7.740 @ 181mph. In the Street Class Ethan was in first place in the championship standings by a mere 23 points. His Hayabusa “Snow White” was running perfect and he qualified fourth among the twenty nine entrants. Barkley didn’t fair very well in the opening round of Pro Street eliminations. A radical clutch tune up was selected for “Eleanor” with the team hoping for a great pass. Unfortunately the outcome was the exact opposite; the bike left the line very soft netting a slow time of 8.60 @ 179 resulting in a loss to Ken Morrison on his turbo ZX14. Street class was now the focus of the team and things were on track. In the opening rounds Ethan was on his game, running right on his 9.60 dial-in. As the day went on the competition became more and more intense and he found himself lined up against veteran racer Gerald Beatch in the finals. The two racers faced off in the early evening as the sun was beginning to set. Both riders knew they needed a great pass in order to win and getting a great reaction time was critical to victory. Unfortunately Gerald was a little too anxious, leaving the line early by .040 seconds causing a red light, and thus handing over the win to Ethan. With his head down, Ethan made a clean pass; .079 reaction time while running a 9.61 @ 148 on a 9.55 dial in. Not only did he win the event on Street class he also won the championship! 2011 Pro Street Standings (top five) 2011 Street Standings (top five) 2011 was another amazing year for Ethan Barkley as he secured
eleventh and twelfth national titles. That puts Ethan into a class
of his own having accumulated the most CMDRA championships in the
history of the series. Thank you to all the sponsors who have supported
Ethan and the EB Speed team.
Photos by Brian Epps (Epps Photography) High resolution images available upon request
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