BILLINGS, MT - Donny Schatz loves racing in his home state of North Dakota, but Montana isn't too bad either for the Fargo, ND native. Schatz raced his #15 ParkerStore J&J to a third place finish on Saturday night in the finale of the World of Outlaws Sprint Series two-night stop at Billings Motorsports Park.

"We had a pretty good weekend, and I really feel good about the direction of this race team," said Schatz, who won a World of Outlaws Feature three years ago at MetraPark Raceway also in Billings, MT. "On Friday, we were competitive, but tonight we were a threat to win and that's the goal of me and my guys (Crew Chief Tyler Swank and Crewman Brian Bloomfield and John Pate) - for us to be in contention to win night in and night out. We didn't need the caution flags, because we had a really fast car, and I might have had something for (race winner) Steve (Kinser) if the race would have gone green to checkered. We'll take third and try to do better in Elma (WA) next week."

Schatz opened the weekend with a seventh place finish in Friday's preliminary feature and started Saturday's program by qualifying fifth in the field of 33 cars. He finished third in the second heat race and charged from eighth to fourth in the Dash event, which earned him the outside second row starting position.

At the start of the 40-lap feature, Schatz was on the move. He exchanged third position with Joey Saldana on a couple of occasions between laps six and eight. A caution slowed the field on lap 10 and on lap 16, he passed Danny Lasoski for second and the two had a great six lap battle for second place. Another caution proved to be to Lasoski's advantage as Schatz got hung up by the lapped car of Dennis Moore, Jr. and "the Dude" returned to second place. Schatz stayed close to Lasoski the rest of the race, but couldn't get back into second. Steve Kinser went on to sweep the weekend and claim his 12th "A" victory of the season.

Schatz and the ParkerStore team will continue the 11th annual Wild Wild Northwest Tour next Friday and Saturday night at Gray's Harbor Raceway Park in Elma, WA. Following the two nights in Washington, the team will return to Riverside Speedway in Cottage Grove, OR next Tuesday night, the site of Donny's first World of Outlaws feature win in August of 1998.