SCHATZ SECOND AT ROLLING WHEELS
ELBRIDGE, NY (Oct. 6) – Donny Schatz continued his late-season surge on Saturday night with a second-place finish in the World of Outlaws (WoO) Sprint Car Series 25-lap A-Feature at Rolling Wheels Raceway in Elbridge, N.Y.
The driver of the Tony Stewart Racing (TSR) No. 15 STP/Armor All/Chevrolet J&J was coming off last weekend’s victory in the Morgan Hughes National Open, which was his eighth win since his triumph at Cornwall (Ontario) Speedway on July 29. Since that race, the four-time WoO champion has raced 27 times and finished in the top-five 24 nights. Saturday, he qualified third in the field of 28 cars, finished third in heat three and raced from sixth to third in the dash.
In the 25-lap A-Feature, Schatz fought off an opening battle with Joey Saldana and then followed his TSR teammate Steve Kinser for first dozen laps around the 5/8-mile dirt oval. Kinser overtook leader Chad Kemenah on lap 16 and went on to score his fourth victory of the season. Schatz passed Kemenah for the runner-up spot with less than five laps remaining and ultimately would earn his eighth second-place finish in his last 27 races.
“We come out to win every night, but if you can’t win finishing second is the next best thing,” said Schatz, who added nine points to his advantage over Craig Dollansky and now leads the 2012 WoO championship standings with a 167-point margin. “Steve (Kinser) needed that win. He hasn’t been running well lately, so to come and get a win is definitely a confidence builder for those guys.
“We were decent. We tried some things tonight and probably weren’t as good as we needed to be to have a chance versus that Bass Pro Shops car. The STP guys have been doing a great job. We only have four races left in the season and we need to win as much as we can before the year is over.”
Next Saturday, Schatz will return to action near St. Louis at I-55 Raceway. First, they’ll conclude the $20,000-to-win Ironman55 and then a complete program. They will be the final two A-Feature events prior to the season-ending World Finals event in Charlotte, which will be held Nov. 1-3 at The Dirt Track @ Charlotte Motor Speedway.