Race car builder invited to SEMA

By DOUG SMITH

Alan Barton Motorsports has admittedly had a good ride in the six short years since being formed by local car enthusiast Alan Barton. Now the racing company’s prized sprint car has landed where no dirt track car has gone before — the SEMA show in Las Vegas.

The first week in November found Barton taking his car to the world’s largest annual aftermarket specialty equipment trade show. It was by request that the highly polished and powered #7TW sprint car was to become the center of attention for long-time header manufacturer Hedman Hedders. Now it looks like Barton will return in subsequent years to help head up an entire dirt track racing section at the famed SEMA show.

Barton’s magnificent blue sprint car was an eye catcher to say the least. The entire crew at Alan Barton Motorsports put in many long hours at the Farmington garage thrashing in the weeks before SEMA to prep the car for it’s close up debut. The crew includes Barton, Gary Beck and Jason Dane.

The SEMA show is billed as the  “premier automotive specialty products trade event in the world”, and is not open to the general public. In a few short days some 100,000 industry leaders and representatives work their way through the more than two million square feet of exhibition space inside and outside the Las Vegas Convention Center. This year’s show drew more than 50,000 buyers from around the globe to look at, touch, and learn more about the estimated 2,000 new parts, tools and other products for the aftermarket automotive industry.

The driver of the #7TW sprint is Brandon  Wimmer, based in Fairmount, Ind. During the past year  Wimmer raced the Alan Barton Motorsports car at the famed Knoxville Raceway in Knoxville, Iowa.  Wimmer ran the season long series as well as the Knoxville Nationals.  Wimmer first drove for Barton when he was looking for a fill-in driver to complete a couple local races in 2006.

Ironically, it was a misfortune for  Wimmer while driving one of Barton’s cars at a televised race that helped catapult both the driver and the racing team into the national spotlight.  Wimmer had a horrific rollover crash which ended up being played repeatedly on a national cable channel and garnered a great deal of airtime on both television and the Internet.

Barton says it’s attention to details and the “business” of motorsports which has helped him reach places like the SEMA show in six short years of racing. A long-time enthusiast of classic Corvette restorations, Barton began attending SEMA about 10 years ago. It was there that he saw just how “big business” aftermarket and performance motorsports could be.

A combination of connections made at subsequent SEMA shows and connections made through racing has resulted in a long list of working relationships with some of the country’s top manufacturers of racing gear. One such connection is the sponsorship by Hedman Hedders.

Similar sponsorships have been forged with Hoosier Tires, chassis manufacturer Maxim, brake component maker Wilwood, safety gear manufacturer Simpson, ignition component manufacturer MSD, Auto Meter gauges, X-Pert Powder Coating, Red Line Oil, and many more. Barton’s cars also run Joe Gaerte racing engines. One local sponsor is Beck’s Tree Farm, owned and operated by crew member Gary Beck and family.

Barton is also appreciative of his employer, Turner Chevrolet in Park Hills, for their understanding for the time away from work that this kind of project requires.

As for the future of this particular #7TW car, Barton said a collector approached him at SEMA and was adamant about buying his displayed race car. When he told the guy repeatedly that it wasn’t for sale, the man asked that he be the first to be contacted if a decision was made to put the car on the market.

Next week the #7TW will be making an appearance at the Performance Racing Industry, or PRI, show in Orlando, Fla. That show is expected to draw in 45,000 buyers from an estimated 50 countries with 1,450 companies having exhibits displayed. Alan Barton Motorsports’ sprint car will be sitting in the Maxim Racing Inc. booth.

While the proof is in the racing, having your car recognized by industry leaders as an exceptional machine and being asked to display it at shows such as SEMA and PRI is an amazing accomplishment in itself. “It is actually an honor,” Barton says.

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