Schatz Wins at Knoxville

KNOXVILLE, TN (May 3, 2008) – Donny Schatz knows the history of Knoxville Raceway very well and he added his name to that history in couple of different ways on Saturday night. First he put himself in elite company of drivers that have won on opening night at the famed half-mile in Iowa. On top of that, the two-time defending Advance Auto Parts World of Outlaws Sprint Car Series champion and two-time defending Knoxville Nationals winner, picked up his first A-Feature triumph with the series, driving for Tony Stewart Racing.

Schatz took the lead on the 18th lap, powering his way past Steve Kinser on the high-side of the track exiting the fourth turn. One lap earlier he nearly took the lead at the same spot on the track with a similar move. He quickly opened an advantage aboard the Armor All J&J en route to his 71st career Advance Auto Parts World of Outlaws Sprint Car Series A-Feature win, which moved him into the fifth spot on the all-time win list ahead of 1995 series champion Dave Blaney. He pocketed $10,000 for the win, which was the eighth of his career at Knoxville Raceway.

“It feels good to get that out of the way,” said Schatz from Victory Lane. “We knew it was coming. It feels good to do it passing ‘The King.’ That’s awesome. It was a great night. We had quick time and were able to win the heat and just had an awesome race car. The guys have worked so hard, and they needed this and I needed this. Everybody needed it. We can now breath a sigh of relieve and go on to next weekend and try to win races again.”

Schatz lined up third for the 25-lap event which took three full starts to get going due to a yellow flag and then a red flag for a Tim Shaffer flip. On the third start, Schatz quickly challenged Jac Haudenschild for the runner-up spot, passing him a couple of time coming off the fourth corner, only to have Haudenschild win a drag race down the front stretch. This allowed Kinser to open a sizeable lead. Schatz ran third for the first five laps, before getting around Haudenschild and setting his sights on Kinser. He used lapped traffic to his advantage as he chased down the 20-time series champion as the laps wound down.

“You always have to be patient, but tonight I was not,” Schatz said. “I kept pushing and pushing and pushing. When you are as hungry to win a race as we have been, you just have to go and I went. It could have cost, but that’s all part of it. If you sit back and slack, you start to do that on a regular basis and I don’t want to do that. I want to get myself back on top of the ladder and start winning races. Next week we start racing hard and when the going gets tough, the tough get going and we are ready.”

While Mother Nature has wreaked havoc on the World of Outlaws this spring, Schatz has kept busy back home in North Dakota, working on a number of different projects. After an extensive off-season run in Australia that netted him six wins, he used the break in the schedule to relax and enjoy some time away from the track for the first time in many years.

“We haven’t been racing, but I have been doing other things,” said the two-time defending series champion. “I have had a lot of things business-wise and everyday life-wise to focus on, that I actually forgot for a bit what the task at hand was to do. We did a little bit of testing, though not nearly enough. We had fun in the off-time. This is the most off-time that I have had in several years. It felt good to have that.”

After Schatz took the lead, Kinser had his hands full with a hard charging Joey Saldana, as the pair battled for the second position for five laps. At the same time, Haudenschild closed back in and slipped into the second spot with just two laps remaining. On the last lap, Saldana, driving the Budweiser/Open Joist Mopar powered around him exiting the fourth turn to snare the runner-up spot.

“We had a good car and came home second,” said Saldana. “We tried to tighten the car up for the dash and cost ourselves a front row starting spot. We were good halfway through the feature.”

Haudenschild ran in the Top-three all night long, en route to a season-best third-place performance aboard the Owens-Corning Fiberglass Maxim. He climbed into the seventh position in championship points with the podium finish.

“The car felt very good,” said Haudenschild. “Everything was going pretty smooth. The track was in nice shape tonight and we are glad to have a third-place run.”

Kinser, who led the first 18 laps of the event, came home fourth aboard the Q Oil Maxim. He began the night by turning the third quickest lap in time trials and followed that up with a strong run in the fourth heat and a win in the Crane Cams Dash to earn the pole position for the 25-lap contest.

Jason Meyers finished fifth aboard the GLR Investments KPC to earn his sixth Top-Five finish of the season in seven events. He moved to within 12 points of Craig Dollansky in the World of Outlaws championship points.

Dollansky was sixth on Saturday night in the Auto Value Parts Stores Maxim, to earn his seventh finish of sixth or better this season in the same number of races. The native of Elk River, Minnesota remains atop the standings and continues to lead the Qwik Liner Cup, which awards points to the Top-Five in time trials at each of the first 13 events of the 2008 season.

Daryn Pittman was seventh in the Titan Garages Maxim, with Kerry Madsen in eighth driving the TK Concrete Maxim. Danny Lasoski came home ninth piloting the American Compressed Steel JEI, and Stevie Smith rounded out the Top-10 aboard the R.A.C.E Foundation JEI.

Late in the race Saldana had one of the fastest cars on the track, but had too much ground to make up. He had a strong start on the first start of the event, which was negated by a caution. He then fell back to fifth early in the race once a lap was in the books, before a steady charge over the last 15 laps of the event helped him to score his sixth Top-10 finish of the season.

“The first one I got a really good start and (Donny) Schatz and (Steve) Kinser actually got bad starts,” said the native of Brownsburg, Indiana. “After that, those guys weren’t going to make the same mistake twice. I think we fell back to fifth or sixth, but then my car came around and we ran them down. We though we had something for them.”

With the World of Outlaws schedule picking up in the month of May, Saldana is very pleased with the performance of his team over the course of the last few races. He dominated the event at Eldora Speedway on April 11, before a tire shredded on him with just nine laps to go. He and his team returned to the Ohio half-mile last week and won in a tune-up for the series return to the track at the end of the month.

“It’s so tough to win one of these races,” he said. “When you come home second, it is gratifying, because you know you are there. It would have been nice to have won on Budweiser night in the Budweiser car, that would have been huge. We had a good solid run and the crew is going back Charlotte so that will make the drive a little bit better.”

Haudenschild jumped to an early lead on the first start of the race, before the initial caution flag flew, prompting a complete restart. After a red flag on the second start, the rest of the event went non-stop for 25 circuits.

“When you get a good start and it gets called back, you just have to try and get another good start the next round,” said the veteran driver.

The Advance Auto Parts World of Outlaws Sprint Car Series returns to action on Friday, May 9 at Tri-City Speedway in Illinois, followed by a visit to Paducah International Raceway in Kentucky on Saturday, May 10.