DONNY SCHATZ
Bad Boy Off Road/Chevrolet Performance Team
Riding High To Close Busy July Outlaws Slate
INDIANAPOLIS (July 28, 2016) – The goal each race for Tony Stewart/Curb-Agajanian Racing (TSR) driver Donny Schatz hasn’t changed over the past decade while competing with the World of Outlaws (WoO) Craftsman® Sprint Car Series. It’s been all about winning races. Not chasing points, but instead doing whatever it takes to win over the long haul. Sometimes that’s taking a step back to make two forward. Sometimes it’s trying outside-the-box combinations in order to stay ahead of the competition.
This weekend, Schatz and the rest of the Outlaw brigade will be in action Friday at Hartford (Mich.) Speedway and Wilmot (Wis.) Raceway to close out a challenging month of July that began with a pair of races in South Dakota and included races two in Wisconsin, four in Ohio, three in Pennsylvania, and one in Ontario. Pennsylvania was the only state where Schatz wasn’t able to park the TSR No. 15 Bad Boy Off Road/Chevrolet Performance J&J in victory lane during the grueling run through July.
After kicking off Sprint car racing’s “Month of Money” with his third career Kings Royal triumph at Tony Stewart’s Eldora Speedway, Schatz earned a pair of top-five finishes in the Summer Nationals at Williams Grove Speedway in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania. His victory Tuesday at Ohsweken continued a streak of winning at least one WoO A-Feature in Canada each season that stretches back to the 2012 campaign.
The challenge this weekend is conquering a pair of tracks where he’s had only limited experience. As he continues his 20th season with “The Greatest Show on Dirt,” Schatz has visited victory lane at 78 different tracks but has yet to come out on top at either Hartford or Wilmot. Schatz has three career starts at both tracks, which range on the opposite ends of the track size spectrum. Hartford is a big, fast sprawling half-mile, dirt oval while Wilmot is the epitome of a dirt-track bullring. Schatz finished second in his first two appearances at Hartford back in 2003 and 2004 and finished fifth in the fall of 2011 when the Outlaws made their most recent stop at that the southwestern Michigan track. He has three top-10 finishes in three career starts at the Wisconsin 3/8-mile dirt oval located just north of the Illinois state line. His best finish at Wilmot came in the summer of 2008, when he raced the TSR No. 15 machine from fifth to second.
With 55 of the scheduled 92 nights of racing complete, Schatz continues to set a torrid pace on top of the championship standings. His 7,655 points are 245 more than second-place Daryn Pittman. His 16 wins are more than double that of the closest driver – Pittman and his Kasey Kahne Racing teammate Brad Sweet each have seven – and he leads most other statistic categories including: podium finishes with 27, top-fives with 40, top-10s with 52, and KSE Harder Charger Awards with nine.
For Friday night’s race at Hartford, the pit gates open at 3 p.m. EDT. The grandstands will open at 4 p.m. Hot laps are scheduled to begin at 6:30 p.m. For tickets and more information, visithartfordspeedway.net or call 269-621-4482.
Saturday night at Wilmot, the pit gates open at 2 p.m. CDT. The grandstands will open at 4 p.m. Hot laps are scheduled to begin at 6:30 p.m. For tickets and more information, visit wilmotraceway.com or call 815-344-2023.
Race fans unable to attend this weekend’s races at Williams Grove Speedway can catch all of the action on DIRTVision.com. Fans can listen free as Johnny Gibson, “Voice of the Outlaws,” calls the action as he does at all WoO Craftsman Sprint Car Series events on the DIRTVision.com cybercast, as well as on the DIRT Radio Network. Go to DIRTVision.com for more information.
The TSR Bad Boy Off Road/Chevrolet Performance team can be followed on Twitter atwww.twitter.com/TonyStewart_
| Donny Schatz, Driver of the No. 15 TSR Bad Boy Off Road/Chevrolet Performance J&J: |
You are coming off your 16th victory of the season. How do you keep the momentum going as you return to a pair of tracks where you haven’t raced in quite some time?
“We’re motivated by winning. We knew Tuesday was our only race in Canada this year and Canada has been very good to me over the past few years. After not challenging for the win in the Summer Nationals, my guys were determined to give us a better chance Tuesday. That’s their mentality. Keep pushing ahead and finding ways to make me faster. I’m the lucky guy who gets to drive this Bad Boy Off/Chevrolet Performance machine. Tony (Stewart) has built an awesome team and we want to keep winning. The challenge this week is doing that at places where I haven’t won before. The last time we raced at Hartford, we started outside of Joey (Saldana) and he led every lap. We weren’t good enough to challenge him. That’s our goal Friday – be good enough to challenge for the win. It’s a big track and a good opportunity for us to key in our big-track setup. It’s going to be a horsepower track and we’re going to have to be on top of things from the beginning of the night in order to have the chance we are hoping for. Then it’s off to Wilmot, where it’s more about having the car maneuverable. The format we are using this year puts a lot of emphasis on qualifying. You have to qualify in a spot to start on the front row, it seems. But we also know it’s 40 laps and we’ve been able to charge forward when we’ve had to this year, as well. Both nights will be a big challenge for us and I’m excited for the opportunity.”
CONTACT:
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