By Starks Racing PR
Puyallup, Wash. July 12, 2012 — There have been plenty of firsts for 16-year-old Trey Starks this season. He made his first start at the famed Knoxville Raceway in Iowa, at the end of April, winning his first heat race with the World of Outlaws that night to earn a spot in the dash. Just one week later he made his debut at the legendary Eldora Speedway in Ohio, and again won a heat race. This week will mark another first for the third-generation driver, as he heads back to Eldora to compete in the Kings Royal for the first time.
The Kings Royal begins on Friday, July 13, with the Knight Before the Kings Royal, which will be a standard World of Outlaws event. The $50,000 to-win Kings Royal on Saturday, July 14, will utilize a special format that will feature six heat races, with just the top-three finishers from each heat transferring to the 40-lap main event.
“It’s pretty exciting to know that I am going to an event like the Kings Royal,” said Starks. “In sprint car racing everything has been around since before I was born or is two times older than me. There are some guys out here that were racing 20 years before I was born. On the scale of things, you try to not think about that though or let it psyche you out.”
Starks made his debut at Eldora on May 4, and qualified 13th, which put him in the heat race inversion and on the pole of the first heat. He would finish third in that eight-lap contest to earn a spot in the 30-lap main event, where he would finish 20th. In the finale of the two-night event on Saturday, May 5, Starks again found himself on the pole of a heat race, which he won to earn a spot in the World of Outlaws dash for the second time in his young career. He finished eighth in the dash to line up on the outside of the fourth row for the main event, where he would finish 15th.
“It definitely helps to know that we ran well there last time and were competitive against all the World of Outlaws guys,” said Starks. “That makes us feel like we can do well going back for the Kings Royal, which is such a prestigious race. If we can make it into the main event that will be saying something.”
Starks has made five starts on half-mile tracks this season, all with the World of Outlaws. He has qualified for the A-Feature in each of those races. Starks has raced his way into the main event in all eight of his appearances with the World of Outlaws this year, and has earned the KSE Racing Products Hard Charger Award twice with the series for passing the most cars.
“I just want to go and do the best I can I can with the car I have,” shared the third-generation driver. “Having a night of racing on Friday will be great. You always learn things on the first night at a track that you can use the second night. We feel like we have something to build on from the first time we went to Eldora this year.”
Starks, who made history qualifying for a World of Outlaws main event at the age of 14 in 2010 at Cottage Grove Speedway in Oregon, will be the youngest driver competing in this year’s Kings Royal. He looks to add his name to a prestigious list of drivers that have qualified for the 40-lap main event in the finale dating back to 1984, which was 12 years before the young driver, was born.
“If we can run like we did last time at Eldora and like we did at Knoxville with the Outlaws, that will make it a good weekend,” he said. “We had the right mindset going in, and didn’t think of it as our first time at those tracks. We just kind of dove in and went after it and things worked pretty well. We feel pretty good going into this weekend and have a good game plan.”
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.
Keep Up-to-Date
For the latest news and information on Trey Starks and Starks Racing, visit http://www.Treystarksracing.com. Also keep up with Trey on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/TreyStarksRacing, and follow Trey on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/TreyStarks55.