For the first time in 22 years, there was a World of Outlaws sprint car in victory lane at Weedsport Speedway, and it belonged to Donny Schatz.
Schatz put his No. 15 car on the pole for Sunday night’s Empire State Challenge by virtue of winning the 12-lap dash and kept it there through the 35-lap feature, leading every single lap en route to the victory.
As a result, Schatz picked up his 10th World of Outlaws Sprint Car Series main event victory of the season and his fourth win in the last five races.
“It’s the team that should really up out here,” Schatz said on Weedsport’s victory hill. “We have three guys that give all their heart and dedication to make sure I try to get the win. I’m the lucky guy who gets to drive the car. I couldn’t ask for a better racecar and car owner and everybody.”
Schatz sped into the lead from the initial green flag and held the top spot even as Chad Kemenah stayed in his tire tracks as the leaders battled lapped traffic in the early going.
After each of three cautions in the middle portion of the race, Schatz jumped out with a lead as soon as the green flag waved again. Kerry Madsen moved up to second but still was no match for the eventual winner, even as the leaders again ran into traffic with less than 10 laps to go.
With Schatz taking the checkered flag, Madsen came in second 3.5 seconds behind followed by Kemenah, Greg Hodnett and Stewart Friesen. Daryn Pittman, Danny Dietrich, Shane Stewart, Brad Sweet and Jessica Zemken rounded out the top 10.
Schatz said navigating the slower cars was the key to staying out front and taking the victory.
“It’s fun to try to figure out which spot to go to,” he said of the traffic. “I seem to be doing an OK job.”
While Madsen and Kemenah seemed to have a disagreement after the race over possible contact on a late restart, Madsen said he was glad to bring home the runner-up finish for the team.
“We had a great race car,” he said. “For us, we got close to the lead. We’re pretty happy about that. We couldn’t be happy.”
Meanwhile, Kemenah had the contact still on his mind as he spoke about his night after the race.
“It is what it is. I don’t race like that,” he said. “We’ll go on to the next one, and we’ll keep trying.”
Before capping the night with a top-five run in Doug Emery’s sprint car, Friesen dominated the 40-lap DIRTcar Big-Block Modified feature after moving up to the lead from the fourth starting spot.
Friesen grabbed the lead from polesitter and early leader Tim McCreadie on a lap 14 restart after Billy Decker slowed and handed Friesen second place.
Friesen held on through two more cautions when Decker, Vince Vitale and Gary Tomkins piled up in turn 3 and then when Peter Britten slowed on lap 25.
McCreadie and Justin Haers put on a dogfight for the second spot, but the victory was Friesen’s for the taking as he reached the checkered flag 3.9 seconds ahead of Haers and 4.7 seconds ahead of McCreadie.
Jimmy Phelps and Brett Hearn completed the top five, while Ryan Phelps, Britten, Matt Billings, Vitale and Dave Rauscher rounded out the top 10.
“We had a really great racecar,” Friesen said after the race. “We were fast in our time trial, and then we missed it a little bit in our heat race. We made some good adjustments to it, and the thing was just dialed in for the feature.”
Results
World of Outlaws Sprint Car Series (35 Laps):
1) DONNY SCHATZ, 2) Kerry Madsen, 3) Chad Kemenah, 4) Greg Hodnett, 5) Stewart Friesen, 6) Daryn Pittman, 7) Danny Dietrich, 8) Shane Stewart, 9) Brad Sweet, 10) Jessica Zemken, 11) Kraig Kinser, 12) Lucas Wolfe, 13) Logan Schuchart, 14) Jamie Veal, 15) Jason Sides, 16) David Gravel, 17) Paul McMahan, 18) Jared Zimbardi, 19) Joey Saldana, 20) Dave Blaney, 21) Brent Marks, 22) Jacob Allen, 23) Gary Taylor, 24) Freddie Rahmer
DIRTcar Big-Block Modifieds (40 Laps):
1) STEWART FRIESEN, 2) Justin Haers, 3) Tim McCreadie, 4) Jimmy Phelps, 5) Brett Hearn, 6) Ryan Phelps, 7) Peter Britten, 8) Matt Billings, 9) Vince Vitale, 10) Dave Rauscher, 11) Joe August Jr., 12) Shayne Pierce, 13) Ryan Bartlett, 14) Frank Caprara, 15) Billy Decker, 16) Gary Tomkins