BARBERVILLE, FL – After consecutive nights of finishing second at Volusia Speedway Park, Donny Schatz and his Tony Stewart/Curb-Agajanian Racing team weren’t pulling out all the stop on Saturday night at the DiRTcar Nationals. Schatz and his team overcame motor issues in the dash and the six-time WoO champion dominated the 30-lap A-Feature in the TSR No. 15 Bad Boy Buggies J&J to score his first WoO win of the season.“The group of guys I have do a phenomenal job,” said Schatz, after winning his WoO best seventh A-Feature at Volusia. “We broke a valve spring in the dash with two laps to go and could have taken the chance to run the engine. We did not get a chance to adjust the racecar there. They got us out for the feature. Like I said, it wasn’t pretty. We needed to make some adjustments – we just didn’t have the time. So the car wasn’t the greatest but it managed to get a win. I’m happy about it. I was really wanting a gator.”
Schatz raced from 15th to second in Thursday’s All-Star Circuit of Champions 30-lap main event and charged from sixth into the lead in Friday’s WoO season opener before coming home second. The Fargo, North Dakota racer qualified 13th in the field of 32 cars and won the opening heat. He finished second to his TSR teammate Steve Kinser in the dash. Joey Saldana grabbed the lead on the opening lap and Schatz jumped into second. On lap seven, Schatz pulled past Saldana coming out of turn two and pulled away during the next 15 laps before a caution slowed his charge to career WoO win number 173. Following a restart on lap 23, Schatz cruised to victory.
Schatz will complete his Sprint car portion of his Florida adventure Sunday with another complete WoO show, before he switches over to the his WoO Late Model on Monday.