Young race car driver, best friend mourned after fatal crash

As a teen, working on racecars with his father, Sean Peters dreamed of racing in NASCAR. The young man, by the age of 23, hadn’t abandoned his love of racing. With his father Steve, he was a regular feature at the Evergreen Speedway, racing for Battlewagon, the company named in honor of Sean’s grandfather, a military veteran.

Feb. 3, Peters and his best friend and roommate, Ryan Kenyon, 25, were killed in a late night crash on Sofie Road near Monroe, when the car in which they were traveling left the road and struck a fence.

The two had recently decided to share a place in Sultan, and had been headed home when the crash occurred.

“Sean grew up at Evergreen Speedway and we will miss his boyish smile, his passion to win and his competitive spirit to be the best,” said Traci Hobbs, who with her husband, Doug, runs the Evergreen Speedway.

Peters, who graduated from Monroe High School in 2008, and his father both raced in Figure 8 races, in which drivers race around a figure 8-shaped track, narrowly missing each other–or not–at speeds of up to 60 mph while going through the intersection.

The two also worked on cars together for many years.

The Snohomish County Parks Department made the new Events Center at the Fairgrounds available for a memorial service planned for Tuesday, Feb. 12, where friends and loved ones could gather to remember the two young men.