By Starks Racing PR
Puyallup, Wash.—April 12, 2012 — Trey Starks may live 1,800 miles from the famed Knoxville Raceway in Iowa, but the 16-year old is well-versed in the history and aura of the legendary half-mile. Fresh off his first win of the 2012 season, he will make his first trip to the “Sprint Car Capital of the World” this week to take part in a practice day on Saturday, April 14.
“It will be exciting to go to a track with that much history and see it firsthand and get a feel for it,” said Starks. “We were going to go to Knoxville last year, but I was a year too young, so I can’t wait to get there this week. It’s going to be fun to get out on the track.”
The native of Puyallup, Wash. will spend three consecutive Saturday’s at Knoxville. After this weekend’s practice session, he will take part in the opening event of the Knoxville Championship Cup Series on Saturday, April 21, followed by an appearance with the World of Outlaws as they contest the Mediacom Shootout on Saturday, April 28.
“The main goal on the practice day is to feel the track out,” explained the second-generation driver. “I’ve heard it drives a lot different than anywhere else. Once we get a feel for it and see how the car responds and what we have to do to it, then we can go back ready to race the following week.”
Knoxville will be the third half-mile track that Starks has visited this season, following starts at Las Vegas Motor Speedway and Perris Auto Speedway in California last month with the World of Outlaws. He has raced at four half-miles in his young career, as he also took to the track at Calistoga (Calif.) Speedway with the series last year, which is a flat, sprawling half-mile.
“We might be able to use a little of what we learned at Las Vegas, but Perris is very different than Knoxville,” he noted. “Perris has short corners and long straightaways and Knoxville has pretty big corners and is a pretty big track. I’m looking forward to getting out on the track and learning everything that I can.”
Following the three weekends at Knoxville, Starks will head east to visit another historic half-mile for the first time, as he makes his debut at Eldora Speedway in Rossburg, Ohio with the World of Outlaws on May 4–5. Eldora will mark the farthest east he has ever competed in his young career.
“It’s going to be fun to run at Knoxville and Eldora,” said the native of Puyallup, Wash. “Hopefully I can use some of what I’ve learned at Tucson (USA Raceway) at Knoxville, because they are pretty similar tracks, other than Tucson being smaller. It’s pretty exciting to know that I’ll get to run at Knoxville and Eldora within a few weeks of each other.”
Starks, who won on April 7 at Kings Speedway in Hanford, Calif. to earn his second career sprint car win, has finished on the podium in each of his last two starts. He has competed in a total of nine events this season with five of those coming with the World of Outlaws. He raced his way into the main event each time with the series, and twice earned the KSE Racing Products Hard Charger Award for passing the most cars in the feature event.
“Hopefully we can keep the momentum we have going,” shared Starks. “It’s good to have things kind of going your way when you head to some big races like we are doing. We’ll certainly give it everything we have out there and hopefully can get a few solid 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.