Returning To Prominence
You read about it all the time, athletes of all sports finding it hard to give up what they love doing. Everyone knows about the highly publicized ones, like Brett Favre, Michael Jordan, Evander Holyfield, among others, but Robbie Starnes of Dayton, Tex., is no different in the dirt late model racing world. The 50-year old Starnes has had breaks here-and-there during the span of his career, but the Houston-area native is as strong as ever on the regional circuit, touring mostly with the Southern United Professional Racing Series in 2012 and that was evident of his 20th-to-third performance in his own backyard.
"It is great to get a run like that in front of the home crowd and fans. We started out in the heat race and was pretty embarrassed about it, then we came back out in the B-Main and it was kind of the same thing. After coming in from that, we all really put our heads together and started working on the car and making good decisions. It evidently paid off for us and I feel like we redeemed ourselves right here at home, it made me feel a lot better afterwards. I know it made the guys on the crew feel a lot better too," said Starnes.
He recounted the Battleground race, "I didn't know whether to keep my tires hot or to cool them down under the cautions. It took off real well for us on the restarts, I got by Ronny Adams, then I started working on Bagley, but Bagley did a great job and race me great. I can't ask for anybody to race you as clean as that and even Litton too, before I got up to the front me and Rob raced ten laps side-by-side. He (Litton) wouldn't give up and I was telling him in my head, 'Okay Rob, I got ya, let me go!' Same way with Morgan, he never gave up either and I believed he picked his game up too, because I could hear his motor screaming own through there. The lap cars were up there too with us, at first I thought I was the only one there and I came up on lap traffic, the leaders didn't have much lap traffic on the bottom, they seemed to be all towards the top of the track where I was running. It all worked out well anyway, I think we pushed that cushion up a little too far in turns three & four, that was really where I was making up my ground. I could stay with them in (turns) one & two, because I kind of had to go through the ruts a little bit. As long as I could keep my momentum up and keep a perfect line, I could make up a lot of ground on Morgan. Morgan would struggle right in the middle, hitting the ruts and it would get me back in front of him, then there at the end, I believe my tires got hot since we was pushing it so hard, that it let him get (Bagley) away from me. By then, we just settled down and just wanted to finish at that time."
Starnes has climbed to third-place and managed to slightly separate himself ahead of a myriad of drivers, battling it out in the SUPR Series' points chase. The experienced Starnes has been in this position before, once battling series' founder, Donald Watson, for the 1993 championship, before getting edged out in the end.
When he lived in the Starkville (MS) area in the late 90's, Starnes vied for the now defuncted, Rick's Furniture Super Late Model Series title, getting close to the championship in 1998.
Back to where he calls home, Starnes has most always driven for other car owners throughout his career. After separating from Mark Erb Racing last season and purchasing Kevin Sitton's 2005 Rocket Race Car, Starnes now drives for himself. He has began to show the grit and flashes of what made him a name at any racetrack across the country in the 90's and early 2000's. The Seventy-seven, Inc crew has recently posted top 3's in two of their last three events entered, heading into the doubleheader at I-30 Speedway near Little Rock, Arkansas on June 15th-16th.
"I came back to work for a natural gas pipeline company (in Houston) that I started with when I was 18 years old, those people called me back in '99. When I decided to come back to work, my goal was to own my own car. Well at first, it was to concentrate on working again, but it turned into I wanted my own car and it took ten years to do it. We finally did it though! I actually went on a project, started moving up in the company, went into management and started some other things, getting invited on a big project that we had up north for two years. I went up there to worked for two years, came back down here once or twice to run a car on a weekend, but it is hard to get completely out (of racing). I have tried to quit three or four times, trying to retire, but someone will ask me to drive their car and I will get back into it. I love the technical part of racing more than I do the driving. I like to be able to change something on the car and also be the one to go out there and find out what it does. Like here at Battleground, it was really terrible in the heat race and the consolation, but we were able to adjust the car and make it that much better -that is what I love to do!" Starnes said.
He added, "We just got this car last year and ran it. We have really just been putting this team together, I haven't owned my own car in such a long time and we are getting a lot of help from a lot of people. We have received help from other racers and also from Mark & Chris Brown, it floored me when we was at Lonestar (Speedway), for what these people were able to do for me. The Mills Family, Richard Mills and Mills Consulants, they have helped us out all year long. Also my two boys, especially my oldest son and nephew, they have been with me all this time and they were with me when I did this for a living, so we thought we may could get something going even though it hasn't panned out quiet like we though it would. But last weekend, we did find something, although it took two DNF's in SUPR races to make us mad enough to search for something. We actually found it (at the SUPR race) at Sterlington, but we had that oil line break off, so we left the same deal on at Lonestar and we was real good there. We had a tire rod break in the early laps of the race, we unloaded (at SAS race at The Mag) in Mississippi with the same setup and it just took off. We had the same thing on pretty much here, but we kind of moved the rearend around a little bit. There were some holes out there in the race and I am not as young as I used to be, but they left me an old man line at the top of the track, so I was able to miss most of the ruts. We started thinking and focusing on what we needed to do and it pulled off a good run here tonight for our team."
A positive dilemma will soon encompass Starnes and his team, with the arrival of a new late model, courtesy of Mark and Chris Brown of nearby Spring, Texas. Chris left the late model division in early March, to concentrate again in the modified ranks. With Starnes now really grasping the car he currently owns and with funding help on the way for the new late model due by early July, the problem will soon stand on which car to take to the track.
"It is one of those things that we talked about when we found our little deal on the '05 Rocket Car that is bringing us some good finishes lately, what do we do with this new car coming, since we are starting to put together some consistent runs here -it is a real good position to be in for us! I love this car, when it is right, it drives great and it is easy on me. This other car is going to be a totally different manufactured car, it is going to probably have a learning curve to it. Being an owner/driver, that is hard to do financially, trying to do research & development on a car. I think we will have a lot of backing with (Ronnie) Stuckey and also Chris (Brown), he also has a lot of knowledge with these cars, plus I think we can maybe use some of this stuff we have applied recently. I believe it will be something that Chris (Brown) wants to look into too, in case he gets back into a late model, which I feel sure he will sooner or later," explained Starnes.
With (17) events remaining on the SUPR schedule, one series' race that could possibly be rescheduled from an earlier rainout and potentially two more dates added on the horizon, there is plenty of opportunites for Seventy-seven, Inc., to gain on the leaders, Allen Tippen & Rob Litton, in front of him.
