(Photo by Malcolm White Photography)
Inside Line Promotions – TULARE, Calif. (Oct. 21, 2014) – Trey Starks ended his season on a sour note during the 21st annual Trophy Cup last weekend at Thunderbowl Raceway.
“The last couple of years we’ve had too many problems at the Trophy Cup,” he said. “These last couple of years we always run into something. We struggled the whole weekend. We showed great speed at times. We just couldn’t put anything together. I wouldn’t blame it all on bad luck. Sometimes you have to take some blame and ownership. It’s a tough race and you’ve got to be 100 percent good.”
Starks kicked off the weekend last Thursday by qualifying 20th quickest. He then finished where he started – third – in a heat race to miss a lock-in position to the main event by only one spot.
“Thursday wasn’t our best day,” he said. “We didn’t qualify too well. We ran a close third the whole time, just didn’t get that lock-in spot in our heat race. We were there the whole time. I just couldn’t make the pass.”
Starks was relegated to the B Main, which he started on the inside of the 10th row.
“We drove up to around 12th and we were racing with Jason Meyers pretty hard,” he said. “I got into turn three a little too hot and got over the cushion. The cushion is right on the wall there so it’s pretty treacherous. It flattened the right rear tire. A little bit of bad luck, a little bit of driver error put us out of that one.”
Starks ended with a 17th-place result.
He returned to Thunderbowl Raceway with a clean slate on Friday and qualified ninth quickest. Unfortunately, Starks was caught up in a crash early in his heat race and didn’t make it out of the work area before the race restarted.
“I was running fifth in the heat and we were pounding the top,” he said. “Around Lap 3 the leader ended up spinning. Rico (Abreu) collected him pretty hard. I got up into the cushion and the car tripped over the right rear and we ended up getting upside down. That really hurt us in points.”
It forced Starks to start 17th in the B Main.
“We were working on a pass and someone cut across our nose,” he said. “We ended up getting hit and spun and went to the back. After that I made a stupid driver mistake trying to make up too much time and got into the wall. We got the car hung up in the fence.”
Starks was unable to finish the consolation race.
That lined him up on the pole of a heat race on Saturday.
“We went into Saturday night pretty deep in points,” he said. “We had what I thought was one of the cleanest starts of the weekend in the heat race, but we got thrown back on a jumped start. At that track they send you back two rows on a jump. We just couldn’t do anything from there. The track was one lane since it was early in the night.”
Starks placed seventh in his heat race, which relegated him to the C Main. He spent most of the race battling for a top five before he finished eighth to close the weekend.
Starks finished the season with one win, 11 top fives and 23 top 10s.
QUICK RESULTS –
Oct. 16 – Thunderbowl Raceway in Tulare, Calif. – Qualifying: 20; Heat race: 3 (3); B Main: 17 (19).
Oct. 17 – Thunderbowl Raceway in Tulare, Calif. – Qualifying: 9; Heat race: DNF (5); B Main: 24 (17).
Oct. 18 – Thunderbowl Raceway in Tulare, Calif. – Heat race: 7 (1); C Main: 8 (7).
SEASON STATS –
64 races, 1 win, 11 top fives, 23 top 10s, 36 top 15s, 41 top 20s
MEDIA LINKS –
Website: http://www.TreyStarksRacing.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Starks55Trey
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TreyStarksRacing?fref=ts
APPAREL –
Starks has t-shirts and hoodies for sale at any race he attends as well as on http://www.TreyStarksRacing.com.
SPONSOR SPOTLIGHT – Blue Dot Fabrications
Blue Dot Fabrications is owned by Trey’s uncle, Dean Starks, who fabricates various types of vehicles, including vintage cars and road race cars. Blue Dot Fabrications even built quarter midgets when Trey began racing. For more information, visit http://www.BlueDotFab.com.
“Blue Dot Fabrications is another business that has been around my family my entire life,” Starks said. “My uncle, Dean, has always been around ready to fix anything that gets dinged up at the track.”
Starks would also like to thank Southstar Equipment, Starks Timber Processing, SpeedMart, King Racing Products, Masco Petroleum, RCC Powder Coating and Emory Transmission for their continued support.
INSIDE LINE PROMOTIONS –
Inside Line Promotions specializes in affordable public relations and media management for motor sports drivers, teams, sponsors, tracks, series, events, organizations and manufacturers. ILP Founder Shawn Miller leverages professional journalism with new media technologies and social networking to improve your exposure and the return on investment for your sponsors.
To meet the media relations needs of your program and to join Team ILP, contact Shawn at 541-510-3663 or InsideLinePromotions@gmail.com. For more information on Inside Line Promotions, visit http://www.InsideLinePromotions.com.
- Shawn Miller on Oct 21, 2014
- Article Date: 10/21/2014 by Inside Line Promotions