CONCORD, N.C. – Donny Schatz was simply not going to be denied during Friday night’s Outlaw Showdown at The Dirt Track at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
Schatz used the utmost patience and saved his equipment for when it counted most, using a turn two slide job with seven laps to go to wrest the lead from Shane Stewart after running second for the entire distance.
His move for the lead came after three failed slider attempts in the first half of the feature.
Once he got out front, the nine-time World of Outlaws Craftsman Sprint Car Series champion drove away down the stretch. Schatz ran out to a 1.684-second advantage by the time the twin checkers waved over the field.
Schatz’s win on Friday night was his ninth in 20 starts this season, his 11th at Charlotte and the 270th of his World of Outlaws career.
“I knew at the beginning of that race, Shane was setting a pretty good pace, but I knew the track was going to change, the groove was going to move around a little bit and (the surface) was going to clean off,” noted Schatz. “I knew the crew would be chewing me out if I didn’t find a way to win, but once I started moving around and finding the lane my car just got better and better and better.
“Traffic was fun. This place is tricky every time we come here,” Schatz added. “It’s fast, it’s slick … and there gets to be a little bit of a top and a bottom to where you can work a lot of different things to get a good result. It just feels good to get this Textron Off-Road team in victory lane; they deserve this.”
After Schatz won the Sears/Craftsman Dash to earn the pole for the 30-lap feature, it was Stewart who got the jump when the green flag waved, driving around the No. 15 Arctic Cat/Ford Performance J&J sprinter on the outside to lead the first lap.
Stewart then pulled out ahead of the pack, opening up nearly a second and a half over the field by lap five as Sheldon Haudenschild made moves from deeper in the pack, rising from eighth to fourth.
By the seventh round, the leaders were in traffic and Schatz was starting to close, carving six tenths of a second out of Stewart’s advantage and moving to within a second of the No. 2 ENEOS Motor Oil/Kyle Larson Racing machine before the first yellow flag of the night waved on lap 10 for a slowing Jacob Allen.
After electing the top groove for the restart, Stewart fended off the first slider attempt by Schatz, motoring around the high side to hold on by four car lengths.
Before any real rhythm could be established, the caution flew again on lap 12 after Clyde Knipp and Steve Butler went around in the fourth turn.
After that, the race ran uninterrupted to the finish, with Schatz pitching his car into both turns two and four on the final restart at lap 13 in an effort to try and work around Stewart. His move in the second turn nearly worked, but Stewart had just enough room and momentum to move back clear.
Schatz was still lurking, though. With 10 to go, he started working the bottom in force and with eight to go, Schatz took a peek to the bottom as the track came to him before making the definitive pass one circuit later and driving into the Charlotte night.
Stewart was forced to settle for a runner-up finish, tying his career-best mark at Charlotte from 2015 in his 24th appearance at the four-tenths-mile oval.
“I feel like if I would have moved down sooner than I did, I might have been able to hold him off, but obviously Donny’s really tough when it comes to tracks like this,” said Stewart. “It’s tough to know what to do when you’re out front, but I’ve been doing this a long time and I’m kicking myself in the butt a little bit for losing a race like this.
“Regardless, this is still a great, strong finish for us, and I’m hopeful we can carry this momentum into the summer months and start picking up some wins,” added Stewart, who is still winless with the Outlaws this season. “This team deserves to be winning and Kyle and I want it to be winning as well.”
Defending Outlaw Showdown winner Logan Schuchart completed the podium after passing Brad Sweet on the final lap.
Sweet and Haudenschild, who tagged the wall with 10 to go but survived to finish, were fourth and fifth.
The finish:
Donny Schatz, Shane Stewart, Logan Schuchart, Brad Sweet, Sheldon Haudenschild, Ian Madsen, Daryn Pittman, Jason Johnson, David Gravel, Gerard McIntyre, Kasey Kahne, Brent Marks, Kraig Kinser, Greg Wilson, Cole Duncan, Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Trey Starks, Logan Seavey, Jason Sides, Clyde Knipp, Steve Butler, Jacob Allen, Nick Drake, Danny Smith.
