#Wins at Attica Raceway Park and Sharon Speedway
Donny Schatz returned to victory lane with the World of Outlaws NOS Energy Drink Sprint Car Series and he did it in a big way. The 10-time series champion won Friday night at Attica Raceway Park and backed it up on Saturday by going to victory lane at Sharon Speedway. The wins were his first since going to back-to-back at the season finale at the Dirt Track at Charlotte in November.
“I can’t say enough about this team. What a great car, what a great weekend,” said an excited Schatz after the race on Saturday.
Neither win came easy for Schatz. Running in a podium position for much of the feature on Friday, Schatz waited for an opening to move around Carson Macedo for second with three laps to go. From there, he set his sights on Rico Abreu for the lead.
Schatz quickly reeled in Abreu as the leaders were mired in heavy lapped traffic. The driver of the Carquest / Ford Performance machine took the lead using the low side of the speedway in turn four, coming to the white flag.
As they headed into turn one, Macedo pulled a big slider on Abreu, which halted Abreu’s momentum and gave Schatz a two-car length lead down the backstretch. Schatz came around to score his 308th career World of Outlaws win.
“Moving around (the track) is what really helped us. Once you got to traffic, it was really hard to get through. Everybody is so equal,” said Schatz after the race. “Hats off to this Carquest team. They keep digging. We haven’t gotten the results we’ve wanted, but this is a tough game.”
On Saturday night at Sharon, Schatz was cruising out front with a 2.5 second lead until the yellow was displayed with seven laps to go, giving second-place runner David Gravel new life.
Gravel looked to the inside of Schatz a few times on the restart, but Schatz was able to fend off the challenge and a subsequent green-white-checkered finish to take the win.
“I could run around the track and go anywhere. There aren’t many nights you get a car like that. Last night, we needed traffic. Tonight, I just had a great race car. Hats off to this entire team,” said Schatz. “Sharon put on a great racetrack. There was a bottom, middle and top groove. We had no trouble going through lapped traffic. I saw David (Gravel) peaking his nose on the bottom there, but all I could do was just rifle the top and try to avoid making a mistake.”
With the two wins, Schatz gained 30 points on championship leader Brad Sweet and moved by Sheldon Haudenschild in the standings. He now sits fifth, 156 points out of the lead heading into the Atomic Speedway doubleheader this weekend.
2023 @TonyStewart_Rcg Update:
— #FIMotorsports (@FI_MOTORSPORTS) May 22, 2023
📌 @DonnySchatz perfect in Ohio double; Buckeye State visit continues with doubleheader at @AtomicSpeedway: https://t.co/zUjWGtLt8x
📸: Paul Arch pic.twitter.com/sObmVfsU9h
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