Positive results at Santa Pod Raceway, England.

Ethan Barkley made his was across the Atlantic to compete in two events at the famous Santa Pod Raceway in England. First up was the Retro Show where Ethan was riding and tuning the EB Speed backed turbo GSX-R1000 owned by Sam Sykes. The morning started off a bit rough with some technical glitches with the Motec engine management system. Sam made the opening pass of the day with some new tuning by Ethan and the results were good right out of the gate.

Barkley making passes on Sam Sykes' EB Speed tuned turbo GSX-R1000

Then Barkley began his tuning magic and rode the bike for the remainder of the event. Keeping the boost low and working on the basics was netting quicker times with each pass. By the end of the event Ethan had the bike running great and netted his first trophy outside Canada by being the quickest bike in the Retro Show X Class!

Ethan with his X Class trophy at the Santa Pod Retro Show

After the event Sam and Ethan spent the next week working out some of the finer details on the turbo GSX-R1000. All this work was in preparation for the upcoming A.C.U Summer Nationals which is one of the biggest events in the U.K. Upon arrival at the track the EB Speed team began to take shape, Sam riding his own bike and Ethan would now be riding Rudolfo Madero's turbo GSX-R1000 who came all the way from the Netherlands.

Sam Sykes and Ethan Barkley getting ready to make a 1/4 mile pass

The morning test and tune started off a little rough as this was the first time Ethan had laid his hands on Rudolfo's bike. The team quickly began tweaking the setup of Rudolfo's GSX-R; the chassis, clutch and engine management tuning were all addressed. The opening passes could have been better with tire spin at the start as well as some down track. If that wasn't enough of a challenge, the weather was not co-operating at all, with rain on and off throughout the day. Iit was decided to keep the boost settings mild and focus on developing the chassis and clutch in the hunt for good clean pass. In Sam's pit things were working well as the extra week of development had paid off greatly. Sam had posted his best passes ever and Ethan was just scratching the surface on Sam's bike and made only slight tuning changes between runs. Going back and forth between bikes had Ethan very busy but he wouldn't have it any other way. By Saturday afternoon the riders were making their opening qualifying passes. Sam was up first and with a slightly stronger tune in the bike, he pulled of an incredible 7.88 @ 178 mph. This was over a 1 full tenth improvement over Sam's best ever time that he set at the end of 2013while using considerably less boost. Ethan was next up and made a good strong pass of 8.18 @ 168. With those runs both bikes were qualified mid-pack in the 16 bike field. Ethan spent the rest of the evening pouring over the data from both bikes and came up with some great tunes for Sunday's eliminations. Unfortunately the on and off drizzle prevented the racers from making a single pass Sunday.

Barkley leaving the starting line hard on Rudolfo's turbo GSX-R1000

It was a tough way to end the event but the entire team came away with their heads held high. After the event Ethan stated "I have no doubt that I could have gotten both GSX-R's in the 7.6's on the very next pass". Even though the times weren't as quick as Ethan had hoped, the team came away with the title of the two quickest GSX-R1000's in Europe. With Ethan's experience behind these GSX-R1000's, it's certain that they will only go quicker and faster as the 2014 season goes on.

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