For Barnes, TV a frustrating, enlightening experience

Annabeth Barnes, a 16-year-old who raced Limited Late Models this year at Hickory Motor Speedway, is coming to terms with being a TV personality.

GAC (Great American Country) filmed her adventures and misadventures during the latter part of the 2011 season. Barnes, from Hiddenite, calls the television show “Born to Drive” “a good experience.”

But it wasn’t always good.

“We had really good people filming it, and they had my best interests at heart,” she said. “It was not fun to get up at 6 and be there until night; it was not always fun, but we’ve gotten good feedback from it. And I learned a lot.”

She says the family wasn’t paid much for appearing in the show. The success or failure of the show for her will depend on sponsorship. If she gets sponsorship for 2012, it’ll be worth it. If she eventually races trucks, Nationwide or Cup, it’ll be worth it.

Barnes had success early. She won a race in the first half of the season and led the Limited points at one point. But then she started to struggle, with wrecks and other problems, and was fourth in points at the end of the season.

She says that if she hadn’t won that race and led the points, she would have considered it a great season. The fall from first to fourth took away some of the sweetness.

“I’d be completely thrilled, but I’m not thrilled. I know I should have done better,” said Barnes, a junior at Alexander Central High School in Taylorsville.

She says the late-season struggles made it harder to be on TV.

“At the end of the year, we had a kind of string of bad runs, and I got frustrated,” she said. “We’d be filming, and they’d want interview after a (bad) race. I’d say, ‘I can't talk now. Give me a few minutes and let me gather thoughts, and get back to me. I’ll have to get back to you.’ ”

Since the season ended, the family has been looking for sponsorship. And she knows that potential sponsors may have watched her struggle on TV.

“(Cup car owner) Jack Roush didn't call on the phone,” she said. “I hope big things happen in the next few weeks, but currently we do not have any sponsorship for next year. We hope sponsors for this year continue next year, but no one has told us they’ll sponsor us next year. It’s a very expensive sport, and we’ve poured everything we have into the sport.

“For right now, we have no sponsorship for next year. If we get sponsorship, if that happens, it’ll make the show worth it.”

Darren Barnes, Annabeth’s father, says that first episode of the show premiered last Wednesday on Channel 184 on Charter Communications, and a new episode was shown this Wednesday. The four episodes will air six to seven times a week, and later they’ll be aired when GAC needs programming.

Were the family members happy with the show?

“I don't know if ‘happy’ is the right word,” Darren Barnes said. “We’re not disappointed. Any time you put a project out there, you don't know these people, so it’s a leap of faith. They can tell you all day long how you’ll be portrayed, but you don’t know.”

Annabeth says she liked the days when GAC sent one cameraman to film.

“Other times, they’d have 12 people filming, and those days I had a problem with it. They’d be lots of cameras in the pits, and I’d end up in a crash. It was embarrassing for me. Here I’m trying to make myself look the best I can so people will think as highly of me…

“Many times I was running up front, and things would go wrong. In the last race (of the season), I was third and had a car to win and was wrecked. The finishes were not showing how we were doing. We’d work hard, and it would be taken away. That’s hard to deal with; it was frustrating.

“Some days I wished I hadn't done the show, especially at the beginning. It was such a shock, with so many cameras. I can't compare it to anything.”

She says the GAC people found her through a movie called “Racing Dreams,” which featured successful young drivers. She was then a 14-year-old go-kart racer, and she later raced Bandoleros and Legends cars. Last season was her first experience in full-sized cars.

Darren Barnes, now 45, says he raced from 1984 to 2000, going as far west as Kansas, as far north as Buffalo and as far south as Daytona Beach. He says the family chose Hickory for Annabeth’s inaugural year simply because it is close and economical.

The family would like Annabeth to move around next year, perhaps in a touring series.

“I don't want to stay at one track,” she said. “Racing at one track was just to learn how to drive a stock car. It was extremely helpful. But racing at one track, you learn that track and you don’t learn how to adapt to different situations. I’d rather move up to Late Models rather than to stay in Limited. I’m not sure if it’s possible, but I hope I can run a touring series with Late Models next year.”

If a touring series isn’t practical, Annabeth says she’d like to race at various area tracks, perhaps Concord Speedway or the Motor Mile in Radford, Va.

For now, she’s watching “her” television show and hoping for sponsorship.