Barkley takes First Place x 4!

Ethan continued his winning ways as he headed to Ashcroft B.C’s Eagle Motorplex for the CMDRA’s Sturgis North Nitro Nationals. In Pro Street, Ethan qualified at the top of the pack again with a 7.95 (the only PS racer in the 7’s). He met up in the finals against Rob Aston and unfortunately Rob fouled at the start, handing the win to Barkley. In the Street class Ethan qualified rather poorly, 10th out of 18 racers. However that didn’t stop him from making short work of the entire field. Round by round he kept clicking off consistent 9.7’s and took the win over local racer Andrew Kern.

Two weeks later Ethan was back at the track. This time it was at the Medicine Hat Drag Strip for event number four of the year. In Street he had another great weekend of racing. Snow White ran flawlessly and never missed a beat. Ethan qualified third out of 29 entrants. He dialed in a 9.60 for Sunday, and five rounds of racing later he found himself in the winners circle for the second race in a row.

Pro Street had lots of internet hype going into the event, top contenders Rob Aston, Dave Burleigh and Ethan Barkley were looking forward to lighting up the scoreboards. Not to be left out, Ken Morrison was in attendance on the ever-improving Mr. Turbo powered ZX14. As qualifying started the heat was on literally since it was well above 30 degrees at the line. Ethan had his sights set on putting ...up a great number and did just that in round two. Running a near record 7.61 @ 189.6. Rob Aston had some moments of greatness in the first two rounds putting up great 60' times, but by round three it was obvious something was not right inside his back-up motor and the bike was packed up for the rest of the weekend. Dave was unable to get grip and / or settle his chassis down in order to make a clean pass. By the time qualifying was over he managed to nudge into the high 7's. Sunday it was just the three competitors. Ethan was up against Ken in round 1 and put up a 7.58 @ 187+, again almost record pace (current record is 7.54 / 191). In the finals Ethan had a great light and put several lengths on Dave before he moved. Ethan was going to the wall pretty bad and was forced to back out of it. Dave gave chase, and pulled a monster wheelie and got some air with both tires! Wild ride for both racers with Ethan taking the win, 7.6 to Dave's 8.0.

Ethan now has a commanding lead in the Pro Street Series and is in first place by a one race margin in the Street Class.

Next event is August 20-21 at Mission Raceway Park, Mission B.C.

Photos by Darell Kerner

High resolution images available upon request

Photos by: Darrell Kerner & Kevin Shupac