Camp Barnes is a free summer camp for Delaware boys and girls, ages 10 to 13. For 52 years, the racing community has helped raise funds for it through the annual Camp Barnes race. This year’s event took place on August 1 at Georgetown Speedway.
The Delaware State Police operate the non-profit Camp Barnes. Its mission is to: “To provide a free camp for the youth of Delaware, which allows campers to develop initiative and leadership skills necessary to accomplish tasks. The camp also enables campers to increase their self-confidence and feelings of accomplishment from their efforts and achievements.”
Police superintendent Herbert Barnes Sr., who founded the camp in 1947, saw the camp as a way to curb juvenile delinquency. It accommodates 90 to 100 campers per week, for six weeks, every summer.
Modified car owner Eugene Mills has been a lifelong supporter of Camp Barnes.
“My father, Eugene, was a sheriff in Sussex County and a racer,” Mills, of Milford, Delaware, said. “He connected the two [racing and the camp] and supported the camp since 1950, when I was six years old. We’ve always raised funds for the camp through racing and would do anything we could to try to help the camp.”
Mills raced until suffering a back injury 40 years ago. Then he became a car owner, enlisting drivers such as Kenny Brightbill, who won the 200-miler at Syracuse in 1988. In addition to being a racer and car owner, Mills is also a prolific collector of racing photos and memorabilia.
“The day of the Camp Barnes race this year, we set up a big tent,” said Mills. “I brought 10,000 old photos that I had collected and sold them to raise money for the camp. It was my personal collection — the Jack Johnsons and Bob McCreadies I raced against and pictures I saved from all over the U.S. There were also books about tracks and racing programs.”
For Mills, seeing fans buy up his collection elicited a good feeling.
“We had a lot of fun talking with the racing people,” Mills said. “There was a big crowd for the Camp Barnes race this year. Being honored was very meaningful for me. Knowing that the money raised will help children is even more important.”
Mike Adaskaveg has written hundreds of stories since the website’s inception. This year marks his 54th year of covering auto racing. Adaskaveg got his start working for track photographer Lloyd Burnham at Connecticut’s Stafford Motor Speedway in 1970. Since then, he’s been a columnist, writer, and photographer, in racing and in mainstream media, for several outlets, including the Journal Inquirer, Boston Herald, Stock Car Racing, and Speedway Illustrated. Among Adaskaveg’s many awards are the 1992 Eastern Motorsport Press Association (EMPA) Ace Lane Photographer of the Year and the 2019 National Motorsports Press Association (NMPA) George Cunningham Writer of the Year.
Photographers
The Outside Groove contributor from Macungie, Pennsylvania, has covered the sport since 2012. Sabo serves as the official track photographer of Grandview Speedway in Bechtelsville, Pennsylvania. Photography is a family ordeal for Sabo. He shoots with his daughter, Abby, at Shellhammer Dirt Track in Shoemakersville, Pennsylvania. At Grandview and other venues Sabo travels to, he and his father, Stephen “Poppa Pepper” Sabo Sr., capture the night’s action with their cameras.
