Danny Schatz racing news 2006-07-25

SCHATZ TAKES WORLD OF OUTLAWS WIN NUMBER TEN IN FULTON

FULTON, NY (July 25) - Coming off a dominating performance in Monday's World of Outlaws event at Lebanon Valley Speedway, Donny Schatz felt good about his chances at Fulton Speedway on Tuesday night. As luck would have it, things fell into place for the current World of Outlaws points leader and he raced the No. 15 ParkerStore J&J with Shaver power to his tenth "A" feature win of the season.

"There something about New York," said Schatz, following his third win of the season in the empire state. "We didn't get off to the best start, but my crew did a great job working as hard as they could to give me a good race car. This car was really good at the end of the feature, and they pay for being the best late in the race and not early."

Schatz began the evening by qualifying 10th in the field of 27 cars on the semi-banked dirt oval located north of Syracuse. He finished second in the third heat race and earned a spot in the dash event, which is where some luck came into play. Fast-qualifier Justin Henderson pulled an eight inversion pill and with two top qualifiers not transferring through their heats, Schatz had the pole position for the dash.

Craig Dollansky beat the Fargo, ND racer in the six-lap race that set the first ten starting positions for the 30-lap race. It marked the third consecutive race for Schatz to start on the front row and he once again took advantage of it.

On the first lap of the feature, Schatz avoided near disaster as Dollansky slid up turns one and two and nearly crashed. Joey Saldana slipped past both and led the first 18 laps of the race while Schatz and Dollansky battled it out for second. By the middle stages of the race, the leaders were in heavy traffic and all three racing different lines with Saldana low, Dollansky high and Schatz running through the middle. Dollansky took command on lap 19 and then Schatz jumped in front on lap 20 before lapped traffic allowed Dollansky to regain control.

With four laps remaining, Schatz made his final move for the lead with a low run out of turn two. While doing so, Dollansky got in the loose stuff high in turn two and spun completely around. Schatz raced away from Saldana and Dollansky during the final four laps to pick up his 61st career WoO feature win (46th "A").

"I am going to keep saying it until the end of the year," said Schatz. "The guy that wins the most races has the best shot at winning the championship. We've made it to double digits now we have to keep adding them."

"The guys on this team have continued to work hard every day and it's paying off. We've got five races in the next 10 days before heading to Knoxville and we'd like to continue our winning streak as long as we can."

The ParkerStore team will make the 1100-mile trek from New York to Princeton, MN for this weekend's two-night Polydome Princeton Nationals at Princeton Speedway.

Keep up with the latest news on Donny Schatz at www.donnyschatz.com and www.parker.com/racing

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