KNOXVILLE, IA (August 9, 2025) – It was a week of battles at the 64th running of the NOS Energy Drink Knoxville Nationals for Donny Schatz and his Tony Stewart Racing team. Despite a disappointing run during his qualifying night on Wednesday, Schatz fought back both Friday and Saturday to earn a spot in the 24-car starting field for the championship feature.
The week didn’t get started as planned, as a late pill draw resulted in Schatz qualifying 26th quick during Wednesday night’s time trials. He then went third to fifth in his heat race, placing him in the night’s B-main. Schatz finished 14th in the B, which ultimately put him 67th in points after Thursday night’s prelim, meaning he would have to run the Hard Knox program on Friday.
With 75 cars checked in, vying for the four transfer spots into Saturday’s A-main on Friday, Schatz went out and won his heat race to start the night. Rolling off 15th in the feature, Schatz quickly made a charge forward, passing seven cars in the first eight laps.
Schatz then found himself in a fight with Daryn Pittman, Ashton Torgerson, and Buddy Kofoid for a position inside the top five. In the second half of the race, timely cautions and red flags flew for Schatz and helped keep the field bunched up.
On the final lap, Schatz ran in the eighth position, and the race seemed all but over until third-place runner Kerry Madsen slowed to bring out the yellow. Via the blend rule, Madsen was able to restart in the sixth spot, right in front of Torgerson and Schatz.
As the race went back to green, Madsen slowed again and Torgerson jumped over his right rear. Schatz got a small piece of the action, which dinged his nose wing, but he continued. In a wild green-white-checker finish, Schatz was two positions out of the final transfer as he raced Torgorson and Pittman. Schatz got a run on Torgorson off of turn four, coming to the checkers, to get by him for fifth, but came up one spot shy of transferring into Saturday’s A-main. That one position put Schatz 11th in the lineup for Saturday’s B-main, which would be another daunting task to make one of the top four transfer positions.
Schatz went forward again in the B-main, running seventh with two laps to go when Brock Zearfoss, who was running fifth at the time, got upside down in a big way to bring out the red flag. Under the red, fourth-place runner Jack Anderson got out of his car and retired from the race with no brakes. That put the Hire Heros USA No. 15 in the fifth spot on the ensuing restart with fellow Outlaw competitor Chris Windom right in front of him. Schatz got a great jump on the restart and drove around the outside of Windom heading into turn three and never looked back. Schatz drove under the checkers in fourth to claim the final spot in the Knoxville Nationals feature and extend his streak of consecutive Nationals A-mains to 27.
Fresh out of the car after the B-main, a pumped up and focused Schatz said, “Man, I’m doing everything I can. The race track is pretty demanding, and there are cars that are really good. When Brock flipped, it gave us a fighting chance, otherwise, we were watching (tonight’s A-main). We’ll thank our lucky stars on that one, and these guys will keep working on (the car).”
Schatz started 20th for the 50-lap, $195,000-to-win feature and, once again, worked his way forward. The 11-time Knoxville Nationals champion made a methodical drive to come home in the 11th position.
The World of Outlaws head back to the upper Midwest with stops at Ogilvie (MN) Raceway on Friday, Jackson (MN) Motorplex on Saturday, and a trip to Mississippi Thunder Speedway in Fountain City, Wisconsin on Tuesday, Aug. 19.