Published: June 30, 2015
Schatz gets long-awaited victory at Beaver Dam
BEAVER DAM — Donny Schatz ended one of his rare droughts
Saturday night at Beaver Dam Raceway.
The Fargo, North Dakota, native won the 40lap Jim “JB” Boyd
Memorial with the World of Outlaw Sprint Car Series, passing Daryn Pittman with
seven laps to go and coming from a 10thplace starting position to do it.
It was the first time the six-time and defending series
champion won at Beaver Dam since 2002, a span of 16 races.
“These guys made the right call for the feature,” Schatz
said. “They gave me a race car that could go anywhere on the race track.
Everything just fell into place.”
Schatz became the fifth driver to win at the onethird mile
oval in five years.
It was also the 189th victory of the future Hall of Famer’s
career, his sixth in June — all in a two-week span — and the 17th of the
season, far and away the most in the series this season. He won five straight
features in seven days (June 13-20). “We’ve been here a lot of times since
(2002),” Schatz said. “It’s hard to believe we haven’t gotten a win.”
Pittman was second, followed by Joey Saldana, Shane Stewart
and Paul McMahan.
“It feels good to get a win here,” Schatz said. “It’s pretty
awesome to win the Jim Boyd Memorial and put my name on that trophy. I’m pretty
honored to have that situation here tonight.”
In the support races, Dan Mech won the legend feature for
his first career feature victory, and Hubertus’ Nick Daywalt won the
Wisconsin-Illinois mini-sprint feature. His brother, Kyle, was third.
For Mech, he was the seventh first-time winner in the legend
division this season in 12 races of the Wisconsin Dirt Legends season, and the
fourth in a row.
“It means a lot,” he said about winning his firstcareer
feature.
En route to the series championship last season, Schatz won
a career-best 26 features. He also won six straight races in one stretch, swept
all of the season’s Canadian races — the first driver to accomplish that feat —
won his eighth Knoxville Nationals and scored the most single-season points in
series history, besting Steve Kinser’s 1991 record (11,236) with 12,427 points.
Schatz has a 210-point lead over Stewart, who is second in
the series in feature victories as well (four).
“I don’t know if we’ve ever been in this position going into
July,” Schatz said. “We’re enjoying the moment, but we’re also working for
tomorrow, too.”
“This is the best season we’ve had to date,” he added. “That
doesn’t mean it’s going to end that way. We’re going to work our butts off to
make sure we finish as strong as we’ve been to this point.”
Schatz is the third winningest driver in series history.
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Moving up the board
Tom Berens won the 25-lap Slinger Bees feature Sunday for
his 12th career victory and fourth this season. That moved him into fourth
place all-time, breaking the tie with Brandon Tackes, the defending track
champion.
The all-time victories leader in the division is Nick
Schmidt with 15.
Steve Dickson is second with 14 and Nick Wagner is third
with 13.
Also picking up feature victories Sunday were Mike Held
(limited late model), Nick Egan (area sportsman) and Willy Van Camp (Figure 8).
Egan won his third straight feature, sweeping the features in June.
Held used a trio of power moves to go from fourth place with
nine laps to go to the lead in six laps and win his third limited late model
feature of his career — all this season.
Steven Schulz had a commanding lead in the race before a
caution with nine laps to go bunched up the field.
“I knew if I got one caution, it’d be interesting,” Held
said.
Schulz went on to finish second, followed by Brian Holtz.
Joe Bongiorno, the 2014 Beaver Dam legends champion, got his firstcareer late
model top-five. He took fourth. Alex Prunty was fifth.
❑
Indiana driver preps for Nationals
Paul Shafer Jr. of Portage, Indiana, competed in Sunday’s
super late model race as preparation for the July 14 Slinger Nationals. It was
his Slinger debut and he finished 17th in the 19-car field.
Shafer, 18, was one of two cars to spin on lap 10 of the
75-lap super late model feature after John DeAngelis Jr.’s motor blew, leaving
a trail of oil on the track. Shafer returned to the track one lap down and
turned a couple laps before pulling off the track for good.
If Shafer returns for Nationals, he’s going to have clout on
his resume.
He won the 2013 Illiana Motor Speedway super late model
track championship when he was 16. Last season, he was second in the Rookie of
the Year standings in the ARCA/CRA Super Series. He was fourth overall. His
seasonbest performance was second at the CRA Fall Brawl at Lucas Oil Raceway in
September in Indianapolis. He also had six top-10 finishes.
❑
Egan wins at Golden Sands
Slinger’s Mike Egan won the late model feature Friday at
Golden Sands Speedway in Wisconsin Rapids.
Jim Sauter Jr. was second, followed by Paige Decker, Jeremy
Lepak and Mark Eswein.
Reagan May, one of the seven Kulwicki Development Driver
Program participants, was seventh.
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