GRANITE CITY, IL (May 16) – Donny Schatz and his ParkerStore team scored a hard-earned ninth place finish in Saturday’s World of Outlaws Sprint Series “A” Feature event at Tri-City Speedway in Granite City, IL.

The evening got off to a rough start for the ParkerStore team when Schatz took the #15 ParkerStore J&J out for his warm-up session. Disaster struck as he got up to speed. The top wing collapsed sending Schatz’s car flipping through turns one and two of the semi-banked, 1/2-mile oval. Schatz was uninjured in the accident and Crew Chief Tyler Swank and Crewman Brian Bloomfield and John Cressman immediately got busy getting the back up car prepared for qualifications.

Due to time constraints, the team had to take one qualifying lap at the end of the session allowing them to be scored 17th at best regardless of their time. Schatz turned a lap of 16.751, which would have been the fifth best out of 31 cars, but by rule he was credited with 17th.

The 1997 Rookie of the Year won the Second Heat Race and finished sixth in the second dash event earning the 12th starting position in the 25-lap feature event. In the feature, he passed three cars to finish ninth and recorded his series leading 13th top-10 finish of the season. The finish kept Schatz in third place in the WoO season standings.

Schatz and the ParkerStore team returned home to Fargo following Saturday’s race and will spend the week getting ready for the inaugural World of Outlaws Sprint Series Polydome Princeton National at Princeton Speedway in Princeton, MN on Friday and Saturday night.

(Photo courtesy of Tonya McFall, Studio 1 Photography)