NEW RICHMOND, Wis. — History means so much to Sheldon Haudenschild.
He grew up watching his legendary father Jac make his mark on the World of Outlaws NOS Energy Drink Sprint Car Series record books. When he began his own sprint car racing career, he set out to do the same.
On Saturday night at Cedar Lake Speedway, the Wooster, Ohio, native reached a major milestone as he continues to cement his own place in the sport’s history.
The Greatest Show on Dirt punctuated the Federated Auto Parts Independence Spectacular in thrilling fashion. Three different leaders took turns out front over the course of the 35-lapper, and it was Haudenschild and Michael “Buddy” Kofoid surging to the top of the leaderboard in the closing laps to give the fans their money’s worth and then some.
Two of the top sprint car drivers in the world traded blows as time ticked away. Coming down the front straightaway to just two laps to go, Haudenschild capitalized on a monster run gathered from ripping the cushion in Turns 3 and 4 to grab the top spot for good. He drove away to his 50th career World of Outlaws win.
“I grew up coming to these with my dad as a kid,” an emotional Haudenschild said. “We’ve got 22 to go to get to dad. Man, 50. I never would’ve thought that when I first started racing. Me and my dad, we just went racing for fun. We didn’t get to race that much my first few years. We just kept plugging away. We never gave up. I crashed a lot of cars. We built a lot of race cars. We just kept going and going. My dad surrounded me with good people.”
Haudenschild is the 19th different driver to reach the 50-win marker, and he reached the marker is his 685th career feature start. His first 46 came with Stenhouse Jr./Marshall Racing before bagging the latest four with KCP Racing this season.
Two of his triumphs have been at Cedar Lake as he also won at the Wisconsin track in 2019. Haudenschild and the KCP crew also continued their status as perhaps the hottest team in the country with their 15th consecutive result of seventh or better, and 13 of those are top five finishes.
Kofoid settled for the runner-up spot for the second consecutive night in the Roth Motorsports No. 83. The result was enough to lift him into a tie with Carson Macedo for second in the standings.
Garet Williamson and Fischer Motorsports continued their recent stretch of speed with a third-place finish. That’s six consecutive top 10s, and the No. 23 has been on the podium in four of its last 10 races after none in the first 27.
Chris Windom and Bill Balog completed the top five.
The finish:
Feature (35 Laps): 1. 18-Sheldon Haudenschild[5]; 2. 83-Michael Kofoid[3]; 3. 23-Garet Williamson[4]; 4. 7S-Chris Windom[8]; 5. 17B-Bill Balog[1]; 6. 41-Carson Macedo[9]; 7. 1S-Logan Schuchart[10]; 8. 2C-Cole Macedo[14]; 9. 2-David Gravel[7]; 10. 15-Donny Schatz[13]; 11. 27-Emerson Axsom[2]; 12. 31-Scotty Thiel[15]; 13. 1K-Kelby Watt[6]; 14. 51-Ashton Torgerson[12]; 15. 24T-Christopher Thram[20]; 16. 6-Kasey Jedrzejek[21]; 17. 16C-Skylar Gee[16]; 18. 49-Josh Schneiderman[18]; 19. 15K-Creed Kemenah[11]; 20. 14-Brooke Tatnell[24]; 21. (DNF) 23W-Scott Winters[22]; 22. (DNF) 17-Spencer Bayston[19]; 23. (DNF) 47-Todd King[17]; 24. (DNF) 28M-Conner Morrell[23]
