From Starks Racing PR
Puyallup, WA — (July 31, 2012) — There’s something about the Skagit 360 Nationals at Skagit Speedway in Washington, that just agrees with Trey Starks. It might be his familiarity with the high-banked three-tenths-mile bullring in his home state, or possibly his driving style at the venue, or maybe it’s the set-up on his No. 55 or even the unique format of the two-day event. Whatever it is, Starks has been a contender in each of his three appearances in the Pacific Northwest’s biggest 360-sprint car event of the season.
That trend continued this past weekend, as he led the first 14 laps of the preliminary feature on Friday, July 27, en route to finishing in the runner-up spot. He wrapped up the weekend by finishing sixth on Saturday, July 28.
“We were consistent again this year,” said Starks. “I would have liked to have finished one spot higher on Friday, but that’s the way it goes. We moved up on Saturday and passed some cars, so you can’t be upset with that. All in all it was a good weekend and a good tune-up for this weekend.”
Starks opened the event as the 22nd-fastest driver in qualifying of the 47 cars that took to the track. He lined up sixth in the second eight-lap heat race and worked his way to a third-place finish. By way of passing points and the inversion used for the 30-lap preliminary feature, Starks lined up on the pole with David Miller to his outside.
The 16-year-old jumped out to the lead at the drop of the green flag, and paced the first 14 circuits of the race, before veteran Shane Stewart took the top spot on the 15th go-around. Starks would run second for the rest of the way to earn his third podium finish of the season at Skagit Speedway.
“Sometimes you are a sitting duck when you are leading,” he explained. “I was running the bottom the whole race and didn’t quite know where Shane (Stewart) was, so I stuck with my line. He’s a very good driver and you expect him to use his experience like he did in on Friday night. While we want to win, finishing second to a driver like that is a great accomplishment as well.”
The finale of the Skagit 360 Nationals began for Starks with hot laps, where he was the fastest of the 16 drivers that were already locked in the A-Feature, and the only driver in the 11-second bracket. He lined up ninth for the 40-lap main event on Saturday night and gained a spot on the opening lap. The third-generation driver moved up to seventh on the seventh lap, and found himself sixth on the ninth circuit. After dropping to seventh near the halfway point of the contest, Starks worked his way back forward and ran fifth for a couple of laps before settling into the sixth spot, where he would finish.
“We were rolling the bottom again on Saturday night,” he shared. “We were able to pick off a few guys and get a spot on a restart as well and got all the way up to fifth. Our car was pretty good and we were able to gain some spots when we could.”
Starks will head to the famed Knoxville Raceway in Iowa, this week for the 22nd Annual Arnold Motor Supply 360 Knoxville Nationals, followed by the 52nd Annual Goodyear Knoxville Nationals for the World of Outlaws next week.
“It was good running the unique format like we did last weekend at Skagit, because that will help us get ready for this week,” noted the young driver. “Sometimes an inverted heat race or feature helps you and sometimes it hurts you. The main thing is to just run every lap as hard as you can.”
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.