(Photo by Race Car Creative)
Inside Line Promotions – TULARE, Calif. (Oct. 20, 2025) – Trey Starks pieced together a strong performance throughout the 31st annual Trophy Cup.
Starks overcame adversity to finish eighth in the standings out of more than 50 drivers who tackled the marquee event at Thunderbowl Raceway last weekend.
“We did wreck some stuff, but all things considered it wasn’t that bad,” he said. “We crashed on Friday and pulled a new car down. It hurt the car in the most minimal way it could. We were kind of struggling with that car anyway so we pulled the car down from upstairs and it seemed to be better.
“Ironically, we had success in the 360s this year, but we struggled with that 360 car all year. We had speed, but we had to make more adjustments than we normally have to. I think it was time for that one to be cycled out anyway. It’s a car from 2013 so it’s the oldest one we have.”
Starks kicked off the three-race event on Thursday by qualifying 14th quickest in his group. He advanced from fourth to win a heat race before maneuvering from seventh to fifth place in the main event.
“All weekend we didn’t qualify where we wanted, but the way the format works out you aren’t completely behind the eight ball if you don’t qualify well,” he said. “We capitalized and made up spots in the heat race to garner a lot of points. That gave us a semi-decent starting spot in the feature. We ran around the top five the whole time. We were trying to find what the car needed. We weren’t great, but we were able to stay in the top five and salvage a decent points night to take some of the pressure off the second night.”
That was fortunate as Friday’s program ended early following a flip during a heat race.
Starks opened Saturday’s show by driving from sixth to fourth place in a heat race. That locked him into the fully inverted, 50-lap feature.
“We were third in points, but there was a big points discrepancy between us and the high-points guy,” he said. “Third through 12th was only a few points. That put me further in the invert, but I didn’t have a big enough points cushion to be able to finish behind those guys. I would have much rather been 12th to 15th in points to be closer to the front. Third through about 18th in points wasn’t much of a difference.
“At the end of the day you have to go forward as much as you can, pass as many cars as you can and hope at the end you did enough. Starting at the back you can get put down a lap real quick. We tried to work our way forward. There were a few wrecks and we found ourselves caught up in one trying to slow down for the wreck. We caught the cushion wrong off the gas and ended up tumbling over. Thankfully we didn’t have that much damage. We spent some time in the work area to get back out there, but we couldn’t fix everything and we had damage the whole race. All things considered, with the damage we had, being able to march to 11th was pretty good, but with the way the points shook out it wasn’t quite enough.”
Starks was tied for the fourth-most positions gained as he hustled from 22nd to 11th.
QUICK RESULTS –
Oct. 16 – Thunderbowl Raceway in Tulare, Calif. – Qualifying: 14; Heat race: 1 (4); Feature: 5 (7).
Oct. 17 – Thunderbowl Raceway in Tulare, Calif. – Qualifying: 18; Heat race: DNF (3); C Main: DNS (11).
Oct. 18 – Thunderbowl Raceway in Tulare, Calif. – Heat race: 4 (6); Feature: 11 (22).
SEASON STATS –
36 races, 10 wins, 22 top fives, 26 top 10s, 30 top 15s, 32 top 20s
MEDIA LINKS –
Website: http://www.StarksRacing.com
X: https://twitter.com/Starks55Trey
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TreyStarksRacing?fref=ts
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 by joining Team ILP, contact Shawn at 541-510-3663 or Shawn@InsideLinePromotions.com. For more information on Inside Line Promotions, visit http://www.InsideLinePromotions.com.
- Shawn Miller on Oct 20, 2025
- Article Date: 10/20/2025 by Inside Line Promotions