BARBERVILLE, Fla. — At one point in time Donny Schatz was a North Dakota kid in the stands watching races as sprint car dreams bloomed within his mind. Now, he’s a 500-time sprint car feature winner.
Monday at Volusia Speedway Park, Schatz made his 500th trip to victory lane and 312th with the World of Outlaws.
The 10-time series champion lined up fourth on the grid, got a strong start, and was at the right place at the right time when misfortune struck a leading Michael Kofoid. A shredded tire gifted Schatz the lead and he never looked back.
Volusia has been a helpful race track for Schatz on his path to 500. Monday’s Bike Week Jamboree marked his 24th sprint car victory at the half-mile track. The driver of the Tony Stewart/Curb Agajanian Racing No. 15 has earned 15 of those with The Greatest Show on Dirt. Volusia is the fourth winningest track on Schatz’s World of Outlaws résumé, trailing only Williams Grove Speedway, Knoxville Raceway and Eldora Speedway.
But even with the enormous magnitude of the achievement, it was business as usual for Schatz when the race concluded.
“I really don’t want to think about it,” Schatz said. “I feel like I’ve got a lot of years left in me. I’ve got a lot of good racing left in me because I still love to race. That’s the important part. Numbers are numbers. That’s the stuff that I’m probably going to roll over to Steve Kinser’s bus someday when we’re sitting here at Volusia watching our kids or our kids’ kids and we’ll have talks about it. But for now, it’s just a number you don’t even want to think about. I’ve been very fortunate to race with a lot of great people and have great partners behind us.”
The front row of Sheldon Haudenschild and Kofoid brought the field to green for the 25-lapper. The outside line proved to be the place to be as Kofoid blasted by Haudenschild for the lead while Schatz ripped ahead of both Giovanni Scelzi and Haudenschild to take second from the fourth starting spot.
As the opening laps clicked away Kofoid set a torrid pace in the Roth Motorsports No. 83. He remained glued to the high side and on rails. Behind him, Schatz tested different lines as he’s known to do and didn’t let Kofoid build too much of an advantage.
When the lead duo entered traffic, Kofoid managed to extend his lead at first as the gap grew to just over a second on lap nine. But Schatz began to regain his footing and cut away at the margin as the race neared the halfway mark. Only two laps later, he had sliced Kofoid’s one second advantage in half.
Right when it looked as if a battle may be brewing between the rising star and the living legend, heartbreak hit Kofoid. The left-rear tire on his machine let go entering turn one, sending him spinning and backing into the fence.
Kofoid’s misfortune was Schatz’s benefit as the Carquest No. 15 inherited the top spot with 12 laps remaining. The Fargo, N.D., driver wasted no time pulling ahead when the green lights flashed. In two laps he held more than a one second lead. Even when he made his way back into traffic, no lapped cars slowed him.
A late caution for Jacob Allen set up the potential for a dramatic finish with only three laps to go. But Schatz had no intentions of allowing any drama to intervene between himself and the finish line. Schatz powered ahead on the final restart and cruised to a comfortable win.
“I wasn’t really worried about what was behind me,” Schatz said. “As long as I could focus on out in front of me and do what I was doing we were going to be alright. You know somebody is going to maybe try the slider, but there isn’t anything you can do about what other people are doing. He (Haudenschild) must’ve spun his tires on the start. Man, we got a hell of a run and went right to second, and I can’t ever remember running a car that hard that long. It’s hard on tires and hard on wheels. It’s hard on everything.
“We kind of capitalized on the misfortune of the No. 83. We were getting to the point where we were having a lot of wheel spin. When your right side is up against something, the left side is the one that spins and that’s generally where a problem happens. And obviously, that’s what happened there and we capitalized on that. Hats off to my guys. They just keep digging and digging and digging.”
Haudenschild claimed the runner-up spot for his second consecutive strong run at Volusia. The pilot of the Stenhouse Jr.-Marshall Racing/NOS Energy Drink No. 17 capped DIRTcar Nationals with a win last month and came up one spot short of back-to-back wins.
“The outside just seemed like you could kind of keep your speed up a little bit better,” Haudenschild said. “Definitely in (turns) one and two you could roll it way faster at the start of the race. Don’t think there’s much I could’ve changed there. I feel like my car was really good, and whoever was out front was going to be really fast and hard to catch. The No. 83 was scooting pretty good, and so was Donny when he got out front.”
Rounding out the top three was Carson Macedo aboard the Jason Johnson Racing No. 41.
“We worked really hard,” Macedo said. “I think we were as good as the other two here in the feature. It’s just once we get strung out at this place it’s crazy. You kind of hit that air barrier and you can’t go any faster. All in all, we took those three weeks to do all we could. Luckily, Tim Engler and Paul Kistler, we were able to meet them at the chassis dyno and kind of do some work on our engine package. I feel like we’re getting closer and closer.”
David Gravel and Giovanni Scelzi completed the top five.
The fourth-place result allowed Gravel to maintain his early season points lead. Schatz and Scelzi sit in a tie for second, 12 markers behind Gravel.
The finish:
Feature (25 Laps): 1. 15-Donny Schatz[4]; 2. 17-Sheldon Haudenschild[1]; 3. 41-Carson Macedo[6]; 4. 2-David Gravel[7]; 5. 18-Giovanni Scelzi[3]; 6. 1S-Logan Schuchart[11]; 7. 14-Corey Day[12]; 8. 7S-Landon Crawley[5]; 9. 8-Cory Eliason[9]; 10. 17B-Bill Balog[8]; 11. 24D-Danny Sams III[15]; 12. 70-Kraig Kinser[14]; 13. 15K-Creed Kemenah[16]; 14. 97UK-Ryan Harrison[17]; 15. 1A-Jacob Allen[10]; 16. 83-Michael Kofoid[2]; 17. 6-Bill Rose[19]; 18. 3Z-Brock Zearfoss[13]; 19. 5T-Ryan Timms[18]