The final event on the 2012 CMDRA Season brought to you by Parts Canada / Drag Specialties took place at Castrol Raceway Sept. 8-9 and the weather was much more cooperative than when the CMDRA showed up a few months ago at this track. A banner crowd was on hand to witness the 100+ entrants make passes over the course of the two day event.
Ethan Barkley had already wrapped up the 2012 Championship at the prior event, but he still wanted to maintain his perfect record on the season. In the opening round of qualifying the track was still green and the bike spun of the line but Ethan regained traction and posted an 8.13 @ 183. In round two everything came together for a great run. The bike left cleanly with a strong launch and the time flashed on the scoreboards, 7.611 @ 186.45 mph! That was one of the best passes to date for Ethan at Castrol Raceway. In round three it was time to roll the dice and try to push “Eleanor” a little harder. Unfortunately the bike pulled towards the centerline and the run had to be aborted, an unusual event for Ethan. Regardless of the final pass, Ethan was comfortable in the top spot going into Sunday’s eliminations.
Coming into Sunday one of the competitors suffered a blown motor. Pro Street can be tough on parts; when you take a motorcycle that was designed to have 160 HP and you push past the 500+ HP barrier mechanical breakage is an unfortunate reality. That being said the EB Speed powered GSX-R1000 was running near perfect. Coming into the semi-finals Ethan had already put down some great runs and he was just warming up. Ethan had a bye run and wasted no time laying down the gauntlet with a 7.630 @ 185.29 mph. With that run Barkley was in perfect shape for the finals. In the other lane was Ken Morrison on his newly built turbocharged ZX14. Even though Ken was making progress with his bike, he was no match for Barkley as he laid the smack down and took another win with a 7.664 @ 190.35 mph!
The 2012 CMDRA Pro Street season was a complete success for Barkley. A perfect record of not only wins at all of the events, he also qualified #1 at all as well. He also posted a record setting low elapsed time in Mission (7.50) and the top speed on the final pass of the year in Edmonton (190.33 mph). At the CMDRA Awards Banquet Ethan was again the emcee and took great pride handing out the year end awards with long time CMDRA announcer Joe Webber. All the awards are voted on by the association membership and this season Ethan Barkley was the recipient of the prestigious Dennis Mark Memorial Award for Outstanding Achievement. Ethan has dominated the Canadian Drag Racing scene for over a decade accumulating more round wins (400+), more event wins (70+), and set more records than any other racer in CMDRA history. If that wasn’t enough, Ethan now has accumulated an unprecedented 13 National CMDRA Championships and has no signs of slowing down in the future.
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