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Donny Schatz has accomplished quite a few things in his career with the Advance Auto Parts World of Outlaws Sprint Car Series, but one thing that was missing over the last 13 seasons was a clean sweep of a racing program with the series. Also, he had never won a race in the state of New Mexico. He changed both of these on Sunday night, as he swept the World of Outlaws return to Hollywood Hills Speedway, to pick up his series leading 16th A-Feature win of the season.
Schatz, who began the night by setting fast time, won the first heat race, was victorious in the Crane Cams Dash and led all 30 laps of the A-Feature event to pick up $10,000. It was the 86th A-Feature triumph of his Advance Auto Parts World of Outlaws Sprint Car Series career. He became just the second driver to win at Hollywood Hills Speedway, snapping 20-time series champion Steve Kinser’s win streak at the track at seven.
“We’re feeling really good right now,” said the winner with a smile. “It was a great night. We did everything right. We qualified good and I think that was the key to the whole night. The track was pretty trying. We were in the perfect spot. You can make some mistakes leading, but we did everything we needed to. The crew played with the race car and we found some things and that’s really what we needed on that type of track.”
Schatz led from the drop of the green flag in the Armor All J&J and quickly began to pull away from Terry McCarl who was running second. He was just about to get into lapped traffic when the first caution of the night flew on the sixth lap.
The ensuing restart saw Schatz dart to a comfortable lead over McCarl, who had his hands full with Jac Haudenschild. By the 10th lap, Schatz had a very comfortable lead as he entered traffic. Near the halfway point of the 30-lap event, Schatz continued to maneuver through the lapped machines.
With 10 laps remaining, he was bottled up by a couple of lapped car which gave McCarl and Haudenschild a slight chance to gain some ground on him. Once he cleared the lapped car, Schatz again powered his way to a very commanding lead as the laps wound down. When the checkered flag flew, the two-time defending series champion had won by over four seconds.
“They are always tough, especially when you only have one groove to race and everybody is fighting for the same real estate,” explained the North Dakota native of lapped traffic. “You just have to wait for guys to make mistakes. You don’t want to put yourself too close to somebody. I about ran into the back of a couple of guys and I have the best brakes there are. I wonder what kind of brakes they have. You have to be smart and not put yourself in trouble and that’s what we did in the feature.”
After starting the night by setting fast time in qualifying, Schatz found himself starting fourth in the first heat race. He gained two spot on the opening lap of that race to put himself in a spot to redraw for the Crane Cams Dash. On the last lap, he powered his way around Jason Meyers to pick up the win in the heat race and ultimately earn the right to choose first for the dash, where he would start third.
“We needed to be in the Top-two to be in the dash and that is just how I race,” noted the second generation driver. “People say, ‘Well you’re silly for trying that,’ but that’s me. There are days where doing that will come back and work to my advantage somewhere. That’s the way it works. Whatever that race car has, I’m going to get out of it.”
With the win, Schatz extended his lead the championship standings to 138 points over Jason Meyers with five events remaining as he chases his third consecutive title. He and his Tony Stewart Racing team continue to try different combinations as they build for the 2009 season.
“It’s all about next year now,” shared Schatz. “We’re just trying to make sure we have all of our ducks in a row and everything ordered. We know what we are doing, and we are enjoying this while we can. Hopefully we can go into the last weekend of the season with a championship and that is what our goal is.”
Jac Haudenschild started third and battled Terry McCarl for most of the race for the second spot, snaring the position on the 28th lap. The native of Wooster, Ohio got a run on McCarl on the high side of turn four and motored his way around him on the front straightaway to earn a runner-up finish in the Owens-Corning Fiberglass Maxim.
