5/8/2025
Bloomington Speedway
It's All in the Family
If you ask Ethan Barrow about his family’s involvement in racing you had best reach for a Snickers bar – you’re going to be there awhile. The tale begins the minute he describes his first moments in the speed game. “I did some motorcross racing from the time I was 5 until I was about 8,” he says “and then I quit because I went with my dad, grandpa, and my uncle every weekend. My dad was racing modifieds, my uncle Sam was racing modifieds, my grandfather Gary Sr. was racing late models and …..” You get the point.
With that pedigree it was self-evident that young Ethan was not going to be content to stay on the sidelines forever. By the time he was ten or eleven he started racing karts, often in Columbus or sometimes at Bakersfield Raceway Park in Linton. There was one minor catch – his dad was still active. Not to worry, his mother Mandy rolled up her sleeves and pitched in. “We would load up this little ten foot enclosed trailer and Mom would take me to Columbus. Dad showed her some things that needed to be done, and she would put me to bed and go to work. She was pregnant with my sister, but she learned how to change gears and would be out there laying on a creeper helping my dad.”
While it may have been a good time for Gary Barrow to hang up his helmet, the fact of the matter is that he was enjoying some of his best days behind the wheel. It began when Gary bumped into former sprint car racer Mickey Smith at church one Sunday. He was in for a surprise. It seems that once Smith walked away he had totally turned his back on the sport. As some old-timers will tell you sometimes you need to just make a clean break. Now the itch was back. Smith revealed that he was prepared to buy a modified and get back into the game. With his interest piqued Gary asked who was going to race this new piece. Without hesitation Smith said, “well, you are.”
In 2005 Barrow was the Wolfpack Challenge champion and going out on top seemed like a sensible plan. Ethan was ready to move to minisprints, and Gary reasoned that his son could use a bit more help. They picked up a new car from Concept Chassis and Ethan couldn’t wait to get going. There was just one problem. A new uniform had been ordered from Hinchman, but it was going to take time for it to arrive. “I wanted to race so bad,” Ethan says with a laugh, “so I went downstairs and found one of Sheldon’s (Kinser) old Sergio Valente uniforms. Now you know how big he was, and I was a scrawny 14 year-old kid. So, I pulled the slack out of it and duct taped it up. “
Even though his father couldn’t stop laughing at what he saw, he agreed to turn him loose. Ethan won his second ever race and by year’s end he scored 13 times at Bakersfield and was the champion. Success followed in his second year. If there was an anomaly in his minisprint days it was his inability to win with a wing. His primary nemesis? The father of current fellow Huntley’s Hoosier Wing Sprint Car Series competitor Carson Dillion. Laughing has he recalls those days Barrow says, “I must have run second to him a hundred times. He was tough.”
By 2008 Gary was convinced that his son had what it took to take the next step and shopped around for a sprint car. “We bought a car off of Daryl Tate,” Ethan recalls, “and Mick (Mickey Smith) went down to Haubstadt and got a motor from Mark Cummins.” Originally the plan was to ease Ethan into this new world. Then plans changed and suddenly he was facing a weekend that included stops at Bloomington, Lawrenceburg, and Kokomo. It was a true trial by fire.
With a bit of experience under his belt he felt well-prepared for the 2009 season. His confidence was not misplaced. In 2009 he finished third in Bloomington Speedway points and was Rookie of the Year. As impressive as that was in that same season he was also Rookie of the Year at Paragon Speedway and the track champion. Now a sprint car regular, in 2011, the year he graduated from Bloomington North High School, he picked up the sprint car title at Lincoln Park.
From that point on Barrow was a consistent front runner in the Hoosier State, but if there is any regret about this phase of his career it is a lack of a 410 win at Bloomington. “When I was winning at Paragon and Lincoln Park there were a lot of great guys racing,” he says, “but at Bloomington I just couldn’t outrun Jeffery (Bland) and Brady (Short).”
In 2015, IMCA RaceSaver sprint cars were introduced in Indiana and Mickey Smith was one of the first to hop on board. A year later Barrow was winning in both the wing 305s and traditional sprint cars. Two seasons later, and after nearly a decade racing traditional sprint cars he decided to devote the lion’s share of his attention to the 305. It paid immediate dividends. In short order Smith and Barrow had support from firms like Bridlewood Consulting, Gold Casters Fine Jewelry, and Tom White Real Estate and developed one of the strongest teams in the region and beyond.
In 2018 Barrow was the Bloomington Speedway champion and he repeated in 2023. Over the course of 2022 and 2023 he won eight straight Lincoln Park Speedway races and was officially named the track champion two seasons ago. In addition, Ethan was the Indiana IMCA champion in 2018 and 2024. He has also been unafraid to travel. During the COVID ravaged 2020 season he ventured to Iowa’s 34 Raceway and scored a particularly satisfying win. “That race was open competition,” he says, “and they all laughed at us. They had wing sliders and shock adjusters because they could run with that. We couldn’t use that stuff. They also had a little more horsepower than us and we still spanked them.”
Barrow has also opened eyes at the famed RaceSaver Nationals at Eagle, Nebraska. In 2020 he scored the Friday night preliminary win. In 2024 he was best on Saturday and then locked down a top five finish in the finale. That got the attention of owner Ben Aufill whose Coyote Candle Company team has enjoyed tremendous success particularly with driver Jake Bubak. It was Aufill who called Barrow and offered to fly him and his father to compete in Abilene, Texas last summer. “I told my wife we can’t pass this up,” he says, “that guy has good stuff. We went to the airport at about 10 in the morning on Friday and ate lunch with the guys and then went to the shop and worked until midnight. We went back and got some sleep and then were back at the shop first thing in the morning.” It all paid off. After nailing down the victory and getting a two hour nap it was back to Indiana. It was a whirlwind trip but well worth the investment.
The 2025 season may look a bit different. Barrow may scale back some and declares that “his points chasing days are over. Last year I said one more year and we went out and won the series and the state.” There are still goals out there. In 2023 he was the winner of the inaugural Kevin Huntley Memorial and the fact that $10,000 is up for grabs in 2025 has his full attention. “I am game on,” he says with emphasis, “I told Mick we are going to take a week off before that and go over everything. We may not be the prettiest car, but every mechanical part will be on par. And the next night at Paragon they pay $3000 to win.”
He has done it his way and together with Mickey Smith they have been tough to beat. “Mickey is an old hard core, old school racer,” Ethan says, “He has done it all. He raced and he has worked on them. He talks to Karl (Kinser) all the time, so it is hard to buck him on anything. He is always saying we have to get faster.”
Barrow is also old school in his own way, and it is also hard to argue with the results. “Guys make fun of me about how my car looks and how I set it up,” he says, “but I ran non-wing for ten years and old habits are hard to break. My car is 180 degrees different than anyone one else. I probably couldn’t make Bradley’s (Sterrett) car go in a circle.”
He would love to race with the revived All Star Circuit of Champions or another 410 wing series, but it isn’t an all-consuming desire. Why? It’s simple. Ethan and wife Haley are parents of sons Emmett (6), Murphy (3) and daughter Monroe will turn two this July. Haley works with children with autism and Ethan works in the family excavating business. The Huntley’s Hoosier Wing Sprint Car Series just works for them. “I love it,” he says, “It is a lot easier on me now that I have kids. Mick does a lot of the work. I go over the night before the races and help him go through everything and get ready. He takes the car to the track, and I can take my camper so my wife and kids can go.
Racing remains a big part of his life and his family heritage. He loves telling stories of how his grandfather built a car for Sheldon Kinser by bending tubing around a light pole and finishing it up with an old Lincoln stick welder. Beyond the Sergio Valente driving suit he has the old stick welder in his possession too. In the end he says, “I’m comfortable doing what I am doing. At some point maybe my boys want to dabble in it, and we can get them coming up through the ranks.” By the way – that process has already begun which forces Barrow to admit, “we’re starting another line of chaos.”
Tommy Kelly KFmedia photos – Barrow family
Article Credit: Patrick Sullivan
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