Trey Starks garnered another top-five result last Saturday at Skagit Speedway, giving him eight straight top fives dating back to last season.
The solid night marked the fifth top five in as many starts this season for Starks, who leads the 410ci winged sprint car championship standings at the track by 10 points following the first three races of the year.
“We started out the night good again,” he said. “We went out pretty late in qualifying and managed to go second quick. We started fourth and got to second in the heat race. With the new format if we would have won that would have put us on the pole (of the feature), but we didn’t quite get there. We had good speed and ended up drawing the No. 6 for the second week in a row.”
The second-place qualifying effort and runner-up result in a heat race advanced Starks into the feature redraw. He lined up on the outside of the third row in the main event.
“We had a lot of moments that didn’t seem to go our way,” he said. “We didn’t have a good initial start and then had a caution with one lap down. On the restart I had a good run and moved to fifth and was passing for fourth, but we had another stoppage so that put us back to sixth since we didn’t get a lap complete. For the next 15 or 20 laps I battled hard between fourth and sixth. We finally broke into the top three with six or seven laps to go. I think we had a nine-second deficit on Lap 24. By the end of the race we shrunk it down to four seconds. We were good in clean track and better behind cars, but just couldn’t figure out how to get by them quickly.”
Starks finished third, marking his fourth podium run of the season. He gained the second-most positions in the race.
“The way I view it is last year we didn’t really have to race through and pass as many cars on the local nights as we’re having to this year because we’d draw and then get at least a chance in the dash to improve our position,” he said. “We could potentially get out front pretty early so this gives us a chance to race behind cars and figure out what we need to work on in traffic because come Dirt Cup and the High Limit week and the big races you aren’t going to be starting on the front every night.”
Starks plans on competing at a pair of tracks this weekend. He’ll return to Skagit Speedway on Saturday for the John Carroll Classic before venturing to Cottage Grove Speedway in Cottage Grove, Ore., on Sunday for the Marvin Smith Memorial Grove Classic finale. Starks won the marquee event in 2021.
“I’m looking forward to getting back to Cottage Grove,” he said. “It’s a track I enjoy racing at and the Marvin Smith Memorial is a big race. It’s nice to be able to catch the final night. I think the way the format works we’ll be behind the eight ball to start, but I think if you qualify well and do well in your heat race you have a chance at making the feature redraw.”
QUICK RESULTS –
May 18 – Skagit Speedway in Alger, Wash. – Qualifying: 2; Heat race: 2 (4); Feature: 3 (6).
SEASON STATS –
5 races, 3 wins, 5 top fives, 5 top 10s, 5 top 15s, 5 top 20s
UP NEXT –
Saturday at Skagit Speedway in Alger, Wash., for the John Carroll Classic and Sunday at Cottage Grove Speedway in Cottage Grove, Ore., for the Marvin Smith Memorial Grove Classic
ILP PR
