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Schatz Kicks Off Outlaw Season with Win
Saturday, 10 February 2007
BARBERVILLE, FL (2-9-07) The O’Reilly All Star Circuit of Champions handed off
the baton to the World of Outlaws on night #4 of the 36th Annual DIRTcar
Nationals presented by Mopar Speedshop. The car count remained high once
again as it has been record setting all week long for the first racing events of the
2007 season. A total of 58 cars were set to do battle on the semi-banked ½ mile
under the World of Outlaw banner.
As the 2007 season got underway with the Outlaws it was Donny Schatz and
Joey Saldana who would be the class of the field. The more things change the
more they stay the same. Schatz and Saldana would sit on the front row for the
main event. All of the biggest names in sprint car racing were back together
again. With the demise of the National Sprintcar Tour (NST) at the end of 2006,
the world of 410 sprint car racing was reunited giving the fans their money’s
worth.
A-main action was intense from the drop of the green until the checkered flag
flew. Schatz and Saldana traded slide jobs back and forth for the first half of the
race and ran side by side putting on a show for the capacity crowd. Lapped
traffic would give Schatz fits after he took the lead at the midway point of the race
allowing Saldana to run him down and make one final attempt to pass for the lead
with less than 5 laps to go. Schatz dodged traffic and left Saldana behind to finish
second as Danny Lasoski kept Craig Dollansky at bay to finish third. Rounding
out the top five was Tim Kaeding who claimed victory the night before in the final
All Star event of the week.
“It was a great night,” said Schatz, driver of the Parker Store J&J. “We qualified
really well. It’s a very good race car. We have a new package, and new faces. All
the new faces are adapting superbly. I’m as pumped up as I have ever been. I
can’t wait to get in the car again tomorrow. I want to get racing, and I want to get
racing every day and try to get everything we can.”
“It was a good night,” said Saldana, driver of the Open Joist JEI. “Donny (Schatz)
is a very good competitor. He showed last year how tough he is. We’re just
looking to get going and for the first last four nights, it has not been too bad. If we
can continue to run like that, it should be a good year. A caution definitely would
have helped me. I was running him back down in lapped traffic. We were
definitely as fast as him and that makes you feel pretty good.”
Heat Race #1 was won by Justin Henderson who pulled away from the pack to a
4 car length lead. Saldana and Schatz battled wheel to wheel throughout Heat
Race #2 in another area code from the rest of the pack as Saldana came out on
top. Heat Race #3 saw Lasoski drive to the win with Greg Wilson narrowly holding
onto the transfer position. “The Crowd Pleaser” Craig Dollansky won Heat Race
#4 as Paul McMahan and Jac Haudenschild traded slide jobs for the 4th position
with McMahan pulling ahead for the spot as the checkered flag flew.
Dion Hindi led “Fast Freddy” Rahmer to the checkers in C-main action to nail
down the two transfer spots into the B-main from the C.
B-main action saw Kerry “Madman” Madsen run way out front as Randy The
Hurricane Hannagan chased him down for 12 laps. Zach Chappel sat solidly in
third place as Becca Anderson and Mark Smith banged wheels slicing and dicing
for the final transfer spot. Smith got into Anderson from the bottom side of the
track spinning both cars down the front stretch. After the restart Lucas Wolfe was
able to get around Jason Meyers to grab the final spot in the main event.
The World of Outlaws Dash was dominated by Schatz who looked like he was
shot out of a cannon and Saldana trailed by 3 car lengths to make up the front
row of the A-main. Danny Lasoski, Jason Solwold, Daryn Pittman, Craig
Dollansky, Justin Henderson, Cody Darrah, Tim Kaeding, and Tony Bruce Jr.
rounded out the field to make up the first five rows of the A-main event.
The All Stars will return to action in April at Attica Raceway Park in Attica, OH for
the Attica Spring Nationals two day event. Visit www.atticaracewaypark.com for
more information. For more news and information on the All Stars visit www.
allstarsprint.com
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