08.21.15 World of Outlaw RECAP, presented by RydellCars.com

Donny Schatz claims his 6th World of Outlaw victory at RCS

Donny Schatz in RydellCars.com Victory Lane with his wife Erica. Photo by Mike Spieker.

By Mike Spieker

GRAND FORKS, ND (August 21) - The World of Outlaw Sprint Cars invaded River Cities Speedway Friday night for the second leg of the Northern Tour, presented by Gerdau. The evening began with time trials where Fargo, North Dakota's Donny Schatz set quick time with a lap of 10.398 seconds, averaging 103mph. 

The 32 car field was trimmed to the fastest 24 for the $10,000-to-win, 40 lap A-main with Paul McMahan of Nashville, Tennessee on the pole and Schatz to his outside. McMahan took the lead at the drop of the green flag and quickly opened up a comfortable gap between himself and Schatz. "The Brownsbug Bullet" Joey Saldana slid by Schatz on lap six to take over the runner-up position and set his sights on the CJB Motorsports #51 of McMahan. A series of cautions plagued the race during the first 20 laps, but neither Saldana or Schatz could maneuver past McMahan on the restarts.  

On lap 19 the six-time and defending WoO champ moved back into the second position and brought fellow North Dakotan, Mark Dobmeier, with him. Dobmeier drove around Saldana on the high side to take third, bringing the crowd to their feet as the hometown favorite looked for his first Outlaw victory at RCS. A few laps later, hornet's nest developed for the third position between Dobmeier, Jason Johnson, Saldana and Brad Sweet. The battle shuffled Dobmeier back to fifth, respectively. 

Meanwhile up front, McMahan found himself in heavy lapped traffic with 10 circuits remaining. McMahan, who ran the cushion all race long, quickly found himself at a disadvantage as the majority of the laps cars were in his line. That allowed Schatz to power by on the low side and take the lead. Schatz then switched to the high side to take away any run that McMahan might have before returning to the bottom of the speedway. From there, Schatz put the Bad Boy Buggies/Chevrolet Performance #15 on cruise control and parked it in RydellCars.com Victory Lane for the sixth time.

"Where (Paul) was at he was kind of a sitting duck," said Schatz after the race. "Sometimes when your in the lead you don't know where to go and the bottom really came in towards the end of the race. This is crazy, to come home and win both races here is year is like living in a dream."

Despite leading 80% of the A-main, McMahan will still satisfied to come home second.

"Ugh it just needed to be 30 laps instead of 40 and I would have won," commented McMahan. "Donny and is his team are just that good and just to be in the hunt with them makes us feel good. We've been struggling for the past month and a half so to be back on the podium, racing for wins is a sign of improvement from our race team." 

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Courtesy of woosprint.com