ELMA, Wash. — Rain may be the only thing that can slow Trey Starks in the state of Washington this season.
Inclement weather has wiped out many of the state’s scheduled sprint car races in 2022, but when Mother Nature complies, Starks tends to find himself in victory lane.
The trend continued Saturday night at Grays Harbor Raceway as Starks led all 30 laps of night one of the Hall of Fame Tribute race to claim his third victory at the three-eighths mile this season in three attempts. It also marked Starks’ fifth victory in six races during his 2022 campaign.
“It was just another solid night,” said Starks. “Everything went smooth. We had a little bit of luck, and moving forward that’s all you can ask for.”
Seth Bergman brought the field to green with Starks to his outside. It took only half a lap for Starks to take over the top spot as he used a strong run down the backstretch to duck inside Bergman going into turn three and slide ahead.
A lap-two red flag for a flipping Colby Thornhill halted the action, but when racing resumed Starks wasted no time pulling ahead. The Puyallup, Wash., native extended his advantage early in the main event and expertly navigated traffic despite he and the team anticipating different conditions when setting up for the feature.
“There were a few things we probably would’ve changed after that one,” Starks commented. “I think we were a little conservative. We thought the track was going to have a little bit more bite to it so we worried about tightening it up too much, but we were still solid.”
While Starks led the way a brawl broke out for spots in the back half of the top-10. A trio of visiting Californians, D.J. Netto, Mitchell Faccinto, and Dominic Scelzi, battled with each other and locals Tyler Driever, Colton Heath, and Logan Forler.
Heath, who started ninth, and Driever, who started 12th, got the best of the the war, powering ahead into the top five and pulling away.
Ahead of them, traffic allowed Bergman to close the gap on Starks as the race neared its conclusion.
“We were great through traffic, but there were a couple cars that kind of changed lanes right at the last minute so that kind of slowed us up a little bit,” Starks explained.
Ultimately, it didn’t slow him enough as Bergman closed within five car lengths but couldn’t make a move for the win.
Starks claimed the victory and locked into tomorrow’s $5,000-to-win finale of the two-night show along with fellow top-four finishers Seth Bergman, Colton Heath, and Jason Solwold.