CONCORD, NC (October 8) - Donny Schatz and his ParkerStore team have been fast every time the Pennzoil World of Outlaws (WoO) have competed at The Dirt Track @ Lowe's Motor Speedway, but they're still trying to earn a final night feature victory there. Schatz, who has won a preliminary feature at the 4/10-mile dirt oval and has seven finishes of fourth or better in 10 starts, just wants to be in a position to win Saturday's Charlotte Outlaw Championship.

"The Charlotte races always get me pumped up," said Schatz, the 25 year-old WoO star who calls Fargo, ND home. "We've had a lot of success there and the track really suits my driving style. I know we haven't had the breaks go our way there, but I can't complain about the number of top three finishes we've had there. We'll have to start from scratch when we get there on Friday, but our goal is to be up front both nights and hopefully have a chance on Saturday night."

Consistency has been the key recently for the #15 ParkerStore J&J sprinter as the team has four top five finishes in their last six starts. "We've qualified better lately and that's been big for us. We've raced strong all season, but just had to come from too far back. We're working on starting up front and finishing up there the rest of the season."

Schatz has been up front a lot this season leading 10 WoO feature events this season. Three weeks ago, Schatz led 29 laps at Eagle Raceway and had a great race with Jac Haudenschild before finishing second. Last Saturday, he worked his way to the lead at the Talladega Short Track and unfortunately lost the lead when a lapped car had a flat tire in front of him. It marked the second time this season that a lapped car cost Schatz a chance to win at Talladega. Schatz is looking for his first WoO win since his thrilling victory over Tyler Walker and Danny Lasoski in the second Mopar Part Knoxville Nationals preliminary feature event.

"Winning races with this series is awful tough," said Schatz, who has three WoO wins, the Kele World Challenge and the $100,000 Historical Big One victories this season. "It's certainly frustrating when you've got the car to beat and circumstances arise and you don't win. I can live with it when it's something like blowing a motor, which happened while I was leading at Cottage Grove (OR, on August 27), but last weekend we lost the race because a yellow flag didn't come out when it should have. That's the breaks, but it certainly plays on your mind at times. My goal is to not let it bother me and keep working hard trying to win another race."

Based on his statistics at the high-banked 4/10-mile dirt oval, Schatz should be one of the drivers to beat in Saturday's finale. He has been in every Dash event and has qualified in the top ten seven times and was locked in the other three races.
Following this weekend's event in Charlotte, the team will have single night programs in Dallas (TX), Oklahoma City (OK), Houston (TX), Magnolia (MS), a two-night program in Hollywood Hills, NM before finishing the season with two races in Las Vegas on November 8 & 9. Schatz has spent most of the season in seventh spot in the WoO point standings, but is approaching $300,000 in WoO earnings, which will be a career high.
The Sprint Car Network (SCN) will broadcast both races on Friday and Saturday night beginning at 8 PM.

(Article by Bill Klingbeil)