PGARA driver vows to win championship in memory of his son

PGARA’s 2024 racing season kicks off at the speedway tonight (Saturday).

Last year, 50 drivers competed across 5 racing classes.

Long-time PGARA driver Lawrence Barks will return to the track this season after losing a year to mechanical issues with his car.

He has been behind the wheel on the PGARA track on and off since 2007, most recently finishing second place in the Street Stocks class in 2022.

This year Barks is dedicating his season to his son, Devin Barks, who passed away in 2016.

“Devin was my one and only child. We did everything together, had all the same passions,” Barks told My PG Now. “He was a great guy. He got into racing when he was 14 years old, as soon as he was of age he joined me in the mini stocks series. He got his first three wins that year, 14 years old.”

“We went racing side by side and trading paint for about seven years,” he continued. “In 2014 I was the Mini Stock champion and Devin was second place. Then in 2015, Devin was the champion and I was second place.”

It was at the end of the 2015 season that Barks purchased a second car and started racing in the Street Stocks class as well as the Mini Stock.

Devin planned on making the jump to Street Stocks with him the following season.

Barks said his son was given a car that would need some serious work, “a racecar from 10 years back sitting in a field, no motor, all rusted out… Devin’s plan was to join me in the Street Stocks and we were going to race those together.”

Devin tragically passed away in March of 2016. He was 21 years old.

“He never got to defend his championship, although he went out of the world a champion,” Barks said.

The car Devin was given stayed with Barks at his home. “I was telling a friend an hour after his funeral ‘I think I am going to do a paint scheme in memory of Devin and run his number.’ I looked up and saw his car and said ‘change of plans, we are going to build his car and run it.'”

“He never got to race it. Now I run his car with his number, his colours. I’ve been doing that since 2016,” he said.

Mechanical issues sidelined Barks last year, but this year a championship for the #18 car would “mean everything.”

“I’ve been chasing this a long time and have only been getting more and more serious,” he said. “It is a very expensive sport… there are no funds in the bank account but this is still moving forward. It will be paid off later, I am not doing another cancelation year. We are getting through this season and hopefully we come out on top.”

Barks said he has invested roughly 1,600 hours of work and $35,000 into the car between his second place finish in 2022 and now.

 

He said none of that would have been possible without his sponsors, friends, and fellow racers that have been by his side in the last eight years.

Barks gave special thanks to his sponsors (S.C. Christie & Sons Trucking, OK Tire, Central Builders, Glacier Glass, Excel Insulation, and William Signs) as well as Grant Powers, a fellow racer who lent Barks rims for his tires yesterday after he realized the ones he had were the wrong size – just one day before opening night.

His quest for a championship begins tonight at the Turgeon Memorial opening day race. All racing classes will see the track tonight, time trials start at 6:00 and the races begin at 7:00.

“It is a dream of mine, it is a dream of Devin’s, and we can do it. We are going to do it.”