From Starks Racing PR
Puyallup, Wash.—March 20, 2012 — While he admits that Silver Dollar Speedway is not one of his favorite tracks, the quarter-mile bullring in Chico, Calif. is beginning to grow on Trey Starks little by little. After all, he earned his best-career World of Outlaws finish at the track last year on the opening night of the famed Gold Cup Race of Champions and also made the dash for the first time with the series at the venue in 2011.
Starks will pay a visit to Silver Dollar Speedway this weekend for the Mini Gold Cup with the World of Outlaws on Friday, March 23 and Saturday, March 24 aboard his Shaver-powered Maxim.
“It’s a unique track,” said Starks. “To be honest, I have never really liked the track, but we got in the dash last time we were there, and had a pretty good car. Maybe it will come to my liking this time.”
The native of Puyallup, Wash. competed in three nights of racing at the quarter-mile bullring last season, all with the World of Outlaws. Starks finished 11th on the opening night of the Gold Cup last September with a stout field of 53 cars in attendance, which marked the best finish of his career with the series. He began that night by turning the 13th-fastest lap in time trials. In the finale of the Gold Cup, he raced his way into the World of Outlaws dash for the first time in his career, after finishing second in his heat race. The feature event was cut short for the 16-year old when the muffler got knocked off his machine, which forced him to the pits for the rest of the night.
“Chico is definitely an elbows up race track and that’s how a lot of them are on the West Coast,” shared Starks. “I’m getting used to that running at these California tracks and a lot of the smaller tracks back home. The more laps I get at a track like Chico, the more it will help me as a driver.”
Starks heads to the Mini Gold Cup with some momentum, following his best finish of the 2012 season, a 13th-place showing at Thunderbowl Raceway in Tulare, Calif. last weekend, which matched his second-best career finish with the World of Outlaws. In three appearances with the series this season, the high school freshmen has qualified for the main event in each and every one.
“Chico is a lot different than Tulare, where we were last weekend,” shared Starks. “Chico is a little bullring like we have back home, where Tulare has long straightaways. Having run a lot on the tracks back home probably helped us last year at Chico. We had a decent run there and had a good weekend last weekend, so we feel like we are headed in the right direction.”
The pair of events at Silver Dollar Speedway is part of a four-race stretch for the World of Outlaws at tracks that are one-third-mile or smaller, with Chico being a quarter-mile. Four races remain in the West Coast swing for the series and Starks plans to compete in all four.
“We are continuing to get better each time we race with the Outlaws,” shared Starks. “If we keep running with them, and learning from them and how they do things, we’ll continue to get better finishes.”
Trey Starks and Starks Racing would like to thank their valued partners: BR Motorsports, FX Signs, King Racing Products, Masco Petroleum, Northwest Powerdercoating & Sandblasting, Starks Timber Processing and T &C Concepts.