RECAP: Donny Schatz Wins Fourth Consecutive World of Outlaws A-main!

Photo by Mike Spieker (Speedway-Shots.com)

By Mike Spieker

GRAND FORKS, ND (August 26) - For the eighth time in his career, Donny Schatz is a World of Outlaws winner at River Cities Speedway in Grand Forks. Schatz was dominate all night as he completed the clean sweep by setting the overall quick time, winning his heat, the dash, and the 40-lap A-main. With the win, Schatz also completed the 2016 series sweep of River Cities Speedway, defending his win from June 17th. 

“I’m going to enjoy the s**t out of this, I can tell you that” said an ecstatic Schatz in RydellCars.com Victory Lane. 

Schatz pulled off a rare feat Friday night by leading all 40 laps of the World of Outlaws A-main. 

“I like these longer races because the track changes so much and it puts you in traffic too,” continued Schatz. “but tonight the track stayed really good the whole race. The hardest place you can be in a 40 lap race is in the lead. You don’t know whether you are making mistakes or not. When you were in traffic you had to go all over and that’s really what helped me tonight. I could see where I ran better or worse. It was fun to be out front.”

Schatz has been on a roll lately, winning the last three World of Outlaws events since the series left the Knoxville Nationals. With the win, Schatz also set a River Cities record with his fourth consecutive World of Outlaws victory.

“What my guys did with this car is incredible. We’ve got great notes from being here before and we come back and they keep making things better. Each time we come back the car gets better and better so they are really seeing some things we were looking for. It’s exciting to be going forward and it’s a shame the season is almost over.”

Schatz was chased to the checkers by Kasey Kahne Racing pilot, Brad Sweet. The man on the move in the closing laps of the feature was Grand Forks’ own Mark Dobmeier. “Dynamite” started fifth on the 24-car grid and despite falling back to eighth early, Dobmeier climbed his way back up the running order and into the top five by lap 29. From there he got by 2014 WoO champion, Daryn Pittman for fourth and Hanover, Pennsylvania’s Logan Schuchart for third. Dobmeier was closing in on Sweet too, but simply ran out of laps to make a significant threat for the runner-up spot and finished with a very respectable third place finish. 

Schuchart and Joey Saldana rounded out the top five.