After enduring more than his fair share of bad luck last weekend, Donny Schatz was bound and determined to get back on track at Knoxville Raceway in Iowa on Saturday night. The three-time and defending World of Outlaws champion showed he would be the man to beat, setting fast time and then charging from the fourth starting spot in the first heat race to win that heat and earn a spot in the dash. He wrapped up the night by winning the 25-lap A-Feature, taking the lead from Terry McCarl with five laps to go.
For Schatz, it was his second consecutive win at Knoxville aboard the Armor All J&J for Tony Stewart Racing and his fifth in his last seven starts at the famed half-mile. The victory worth $10,000 on Saturday night was his fourth of the season and the 92nd of his World of Outlaws career.
“To get a victory is all you can ask for, especially after the weekend we had last week and we’re going to have them, but we’re not going to stay down long,” said Schatz in Victory Lane. “We come back kicking.”
The race began with Brian Brown, who started on the pole, leading the field into turns one and two. Schatz charged past Dusty Zomer and Steve Kinser on the opening lap to move all the way to fifth after lining up seventh. On the next lap he got around Jac Haudenschild to take third.
Brown led the first 14 laps of the race, with Danny Lasoski chasing him for the first few circuits, before Terry McCarl moved into the runner-up spot and tracked down the leader. McCarl tried a slide job on Brown on a lap-6 restart, but could not quite make it stick. At the same time, Schatz reeled in McCarl and the pair began to battle for the second spot as Brown maintained his lead in lapped traffic.
On the 15th lap, McCarl put a slider on Brown in turn four and powered his way into the lead as the pair charged down the front straightaway. Just two laps later, Schatz was able to get around Brown and set his sights on McCarl as the leader negotiated lapped traffic. With just seven laps to go, Schatz tried a slider on McCarl off turn four and nearly took the lead.
Schatz used the high side of turn four on the 20th lap to power his way by McCarl and quickly pull away as the leaders were still in lapped traffic. The final caution of the night flew on the white flag lap, leading to a two-lap shootout on the restart, per World of Outlaws rules that two consecutive green flag laps have to be run to finish a race. Schatz led on the final restart and pulled away over the final two laps to earn his 11th career win at Knoxville.
“I was thinking, yes we need this,” said the North Dakota native with a smile when asked about the late caution. “Right now, I need to have things thrown at me that I can’t make mistakes on. That gives someone else an opportunity to win a race and that is what we are here for is to race for wins. If I was running second, I wouldn’t have wanted to have that. It’s my job in that race car to make sure that I don’t make mistakes. If I go out and run the laps that I’m supposed to and keep my car underneath me which I’m supposed to do, I’m not going to give it up.”
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