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Barkley sets new E.T. record on Canadian soil! The TS Signs Printing & Promo backed rider Ethan Barkley was at Mission Raceway Park for the CMDRA's 2019 Season Finale. Once again there was a lack of racers in the Pro Street class so Ethan was forced to run in the Pro Mod category whose rules differ drastically to the Pro Street class. Most notably the Pro Mod class is based on a purpose built dragbike with a tube chassis, massive slick tires, wheelie bars and either nitrous or turbocharger for a power adder. It was an apples and oranges mix with Ethan in the class but that didn't deter the 18 time Champion one bit.
Barkley getting ready to take on the Pro Mod bikes! During the Saturday morning riders meeting, the CMDRA officials decided to run a full race program for the first day since Sunday's forecast was calling for 100% rain. This abbreviated schedule meant no testing for the pro classes along with limited qualifying runs in the morning, then straight into eliminations in the afternoon. Ethan was confident his turbocharged GSX-R1000 "Eleanor" was up for the task. In his opening qualifying run Ethan instantly spun the tire at the start line. With only one more qualifying pass allowed he had to make the next one count and couldn't afford another spin.
Barkley drops the hammer! Ethan went through his settings and softened the shock and lowered his rpm at the start line in hopes of getting off the start line cleanly. Also before his run we walked the start line in both lanes, searching for that perfect spot to line up. All that attention to detail worked perfectly as Ethan once again set a new benchmark in Canadian Motorcycle Drag Racing with a picture perfect 7.192 @ 192.43 MPH pass. He previously held the quickest pass in Canada at 7.22 set at this very track in September of 2018. Not only that but he was now the #1 qualifier in the Pro Mod class. Click here to watch the pass!
Quickest Pro Street run on Canadian Soil! Now the focus was on eliminations and the turnaround time was very limited. So it was all Ethan could do to get some data downloaded and look into where he could add some more power to shoot for a 6 second E.T. Since he qualified first he had a bye in the opening round, so it was now or never to shoot for glory. However in the burnout the bike was not running well and the engine shut off as he approached the start line. Ethan knew something was not right and elected to simply forego the run and see if he could figure out what the problem was before round two. After a careful investigation it was determined that an internal connecting rod bearing had issues, thus dropping the oil pressure below the minimum threshold set in the ecu and that was the cause of the engine shutting off after the burnout. This safety setting Ethan installed likely saved a catastrophic failure which is not only costly but very dangerous because if the engine breaks during a run it could potentially putt oil on the track and on the tires. Not something anyone wants at 200 mph. The problem now was time as the between round gap was extremely tight and there was no way for Ethan to swap in the back-up engine in time to make it up for the semi-finals. It was a tough way to end the weekend knowing that the quest for a 6 second pass on Canadian soil would have to wait until 2020. Even though Ethan only made one full pass he was once again the quickest motorcycle at the conclusion of the event! It was an amazing accomplishment given the level of competition in attendance.
Ethan with the one and only "Eleanor" PROUDLY SPONSORED BY:
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