DONNY SCHATZ
TSR Bad Boy Off Road/Chevrolet Performance Team
To Debut #ThinkPink Scheme at Four-Crown Nationals
INDIANAPOLIS (Sept. 23, 2016) – Success is the result of all of the pieces working together at the right time. And the saying goes, “it takes a team to make the dream.” For Tony Stewart-Curb Agajanian Racing (TSR), the run of success over the past decade can be attributed to a team of talented professionals continuing to push to be the best and being supported by successful partners who share its passion for being the best.
TSR’s Donny Schatz and the Bad Boy Off Road/Chevrolet Performance team have been focused on winning World of Outlaws (WoO) Sprint Car Series races at dirt tracks all across the United States throughout this, his 20th season of racing with “The Greatest Show on Dirt.” In continuing the tradition of the past three seasons, Schatz and the team join the fight against cancer with Chevrolet as part of TSR’s appreciation for Chevrolet’s continued support of its grassroots motorsports program.
This weekend, Schatz will debut the #ThinkPink TSR No. 15 Bad Boy Off Road/Chevrolet Performance J&J Friday at Tony Stewart’s Eldora Speedway in Rossburg, Ohio for the annual Four-Crown event before heading to western Pennsylvania for Saturday’s Commonwealth Clash at Lernerville Speedway in Sarver. The bright yellow on the black-and-white racing machine will be replaced for six of the final 11 races with pink, the official color for breast cancer awareness and the fight against cancer. TSR and its partners are hoping the splash of pink on the TSR No. 15 will encourage women everywhere to get checked. Anyone interested in donating to Chevrolet’s 2016 pink initiative is encouraged to visitwww.cancer.org/chevroletmsabc
The success since Chevrolet first aligned with Tony Stewart Racing has been unparalleled. TSR became the first dirt short-track organization the manufacturer partnered with in December 2006. The partnership debuted at the 2007 Chili Bowl Nationals, where Tony Stewart took his bow-tie-branded gold No. 20 to victory lane and was followed that season with a United States Auto Club (USAC) National Sprint Car Series title earned by Levi Jones. TSR and Chevrolet won three more USAC Sprint Car Series championships with Jones in 2009, 2010 and 2011, as well as with the late Bryan Clauson in 2013. The partnership also included four consecutive USAC Silver Crown championships with Jones in 2010 and 2011, and Bobby East in 2012 and 2013. The brand was also represented during WoO championship seasons by TSR and Schatz in 2008, 2009, 2012 and 2014.
In 2015, Chevrolet Performance became a co-primary sponsor on the No. 15 machine and was part of a historic season for Schatz and TSR. Schatz earned a career-best 31 WoO A-Feature wins, the most an Outlaw driver has won in a season since 1992, when Steve Kinser tallied 31, and the victories led to a seventh WoO championship for Schatz, the sixth for TSR and a first in a primary role for Chevrolet.
This season, the winning tradition has continued for TSR, Chevrolet and Schatz. The team has posted unmatched success and leads the WoO championship standings by 275 points entering this weekend’s action. When he earned his 20th win of the season Aug. 28 at his hometown track of Nodak Speedway in Minot, North Dakota, Schatz became the first driver in WoO history to win 20 or more A-Feature races in four consecutive seasons.
There have been numerous highlights this season, but the team’s triumph in the 33rd annual Kings Royal at Eldora in July has been the shining moment so far in the campaign. After finishing second in the first two July Eldora A-Features, Schatz raced his way into the lead on lap 20 of the 40-lap race and then held off a pair of youngsters looking to claim their first $50,000 triumph. The win was his third career Kings Royal victory and seventh career WoO A-Feature victory at the high-speed, half-mile dirt oval.
After winning the Kings Royal, the team finished second in the Don Martin Memorial Silver Cup at Lernerville Speedway three nights later. Schatz is looking to finish one position higher when he returnsSaturday. He is a six-time winner at Lernerville, including the 2010 Commonwealth Clash.
Schatz is coming off a second-place finish Wednesday at Hartford (Mich.) Speedway. It was the 36th time Schatz has finished first or second this season. The Fargo, North Dakota racer tops the series in wins with 22, top-fives with 53, top-10s with 68 and 10 KSE Hard Charger Awards.
Friday at Eldora Speedway, the pit gates will open at 1:30 p.m. EDT and the grandstands open at 2 p.m.Hot laps are scheduled to begin at 6 p.m. More details are available by calling Eldora Speedway at (937) 338-3815, or by visiting eldoraspeedway.com.
Saturday at Lernerville Speedway, the pit gates will open at 4 p.m. EDT and the grandstands open at 5 p.m. Hot laps are scheduled to begin at 6:30 p.m. More details are available by calling at (724) 353-1350, or by visiting lernerville.com.
Race fans unable to attend this weekend’s races 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 toDIRTVision.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: |
With only 11 races remaining in your season, what are the most important things you need to accomplish to clinch the championship?
“We need to keep racing every night like we have all season, and that’s continuing to try and get better. We’re going back to some places where have been before and hopefully can use some of the things we learned there earlier in the year. We raced at Eldora five times and were pretty consistent. Hopefully, we’ll have conditions similar to how they were in July. I know my team – Rick Warner, Steve Swenson and Brad Mariscotti – worked on a lot of little things when we were there for the Kings Royal and we were right there all three nights. That doesn’t guarantee us anything this weekend but, hopefully, our baseline is pretty close to where we need to be. Same thing at Lernerville. We were pretty decent at the Silver Cup but came up one spot short. It’s still about wins right now for us. We want wins this weekend and next weekend, too, at the National Open. After that, maybe we can start talking about championships.”
CONTACT:
Contact Bill Klingbeil with True Speed Communication
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