ROSSBURG, OH (April 10) - In the rugged World of Outlaws Sprint Series, a split second can make a huge difference in a weekend of action. Donny Schatz and his ParkerStore team were .04 of a second from possibly having a much different experience at Eldora Speedway in Rossburg, OH.

Schatz, who qualified 15th in Friday night's opener, was one spot short of being on the front row for the Stacker 2 Dash, which sets the starting lineup for the feature event. Instead, Schatz started the 25-lap preliminary feature 11th and finished tenth on the rocket-fast high-banked track.

Saturday's program got off to a stressful beginning when the #15 ParkerStore J&J experienced motor programs during warm-ups. The ParkerStore crew of Todd Seitz, Brian Bloomfield, John Pate and Danny Schatz swapped Shaver power-plants in just enough time for Schatz to make his qualifying lap. A quickly deteriorating track didn't help as Schatz ended up 30th fastest in qualifying out of 50 cars in competition.

The Fargo, ND racer had his elbows up in the second heat race as he charged from eighth to fourth and earned a transfer position into the 30-lap "A" feature event. Track conditions were a little different on Saturday night with the track being just a bit slower, but passing remained difficult. Schatz raced from his 24th starting position into 15th with a handful of laps remaining, but couldn't get any closer to the leaders as the track began taking rubber and virtually all of the cars were going the same speed during the final stages of the race.

World of Outlaws all-time winningest drivers won the feature events as Sammy Swindell won Friday and the "King of the Outlaws", Steve Kinser, won Saturday's finale.

"We were just a bit off in qualifying the first night and that may have changed our weekend a great deal," said Schatz. "With a high-speed momentum track like this, track position is huge. If it would have worked out where we started up front on Friday in the dash, maybe we could have gotten locked in and had a better chance Saturday. That's racing I guess and we'll hopefully be better next time when we come back."

The ParkerStore team will return to action on Saturday night at Tri-State Speedway in Haubstadt, IN. Schatz continues to hold down the fourth position in the WoO season standings following this weekend's action.

(Photos Courtesy of David Allio)