By: Ron Burt
The 10-time World of Outlaws Sprint Car Series champion got the monkey off his back Friday, May 19th at Attica Raceway Park, Donnie Schatz took the lead on the white flag lap, grabbing the victory and earning his first series’ win of 2023. It’s hard to believe it’s May, and Schatz picked up his first feature win. This was his fifth win at Attica and the 308th series win of his career. Schatz has been racing well lately posting four podium finishes in the last five World of Outlaw events. The other top 5 finishes went to 2. Abreu, 3. Macedo, 4. Haudenschild, and 5. Gravel. The fastest qualifier was Rico Abreu, 12.513.
Cap Henry was back in the winner’s circle at Fremont Speedway on May 20th. He’s on a hot streak at a couple of tracks! He had a late race pass to take the 410-sprint win, making it his second win at the Action Track in this early season. Henry, started seventh in the 30-lap, $4,000-to-win feature waged a great battle with Zeth Sabo whose team drove from New York after an All-Star Circuit of Champions event was rained out. The pair nearly collided exiting turn four with Sabo hitting the front stretch wall on lap 22, putting Henry into the lead. Henry held on for his 14th career win at Fremont. This capped off a good weekend for Henry. On Friday night racing in the World of Outlaws he finished the feature in 6th. The 305 A-main, went to Dustin Stroup. He had a dog fight on his hands as he and Bryan Sebetto battled each other hard the last four laps after a caution. The two traded slide jobs every lap with Sebetto leading by a nose on laps 22 and 23 before Stroup did a slide job to regain the top spot coming to the white flag. The pair raced side by side in turns one and two and banged wheels down the back stretch before Stroup was able to secure the win. It was his ninth career win at Fremont. Finishing behind your leader 2. Bryan Sebetto, 3. Seth Schneider, 4. 1W-Paul Weaver, and 5. Logan Riehl. The dirt truck feature was won by Dave Gumby, followed by Cory McCaughey, Kent Brewer, Brad Mitten, and Dana Fry.
After being canceled the first 3 weeks of the season due to weather, Oakshade Raceway Park opened for racing. In the 25-lap Late Model feature, Rusty Schlenk started on the pole and built a big lead over the field. Colin Shipley came into the mix with the leader after a caution. Four-time track champion Devin Shiels worked his way up from the fifth starting position and passed Shipley to challenge Schlenk for the lead. He got alongside Schlenk on lap 11. Shiels appeared to complete the pass coming off turn two, but Schlenk tried to duck back under Shiels going into turn three. The two drivers made contact and Schlenk spun around bringing out the yellow flag on lap 12. As the field was coming back to the green flag, Shiels suddenly pulled off the track and retired back to the pits. That turned the lead over to Shipley. Dusty Moore fought back from his early spin to take the lead from Shipley on lap 17, but Schlenk was charging hard toward the front and got by Moore to take the lead once again on lap 18. Moore would fight back on the final lap, but Schlenk held on to pick up the first Oakshade Raceway feature win of the year. Shipley slipped back to finish third behind Moore. Steve Kester and 2022 track champion Casey Noonan were the rest of the top five finishers. The other feature winners were Late Model Sportsman, Carter Schlenk, Dominator Stocks, Adam Noonan and Sport Compacts, Cory Gumm. Until next week, keep your wheels down. Ron Out!
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