After a rough start, Shane Stewart’s season with the Advance Auto Parts World of Outlaw sprint cars is finally turning around.
The 32-year-old driver from Bixby, Okla., had a great weekend in Ohio with a pair of third-place finishes May 30-31. He backed up with a victory this past Friday at Knoxville, Iowa.
“The first part of the season, we had a lot of bad luck,” said Stewart at Eldora Speedway May 31. “There were a lot of good finishes that we were going to have and should have had and we had flats and ran out of fuel.”
After picking and choosing both 410- and 360-sprint races in 2007, Dennis Roth picked Stewart to run his No. 83 car after seeing Stewart race last season in California.
“Everything is new for me here, the cars, the crew,” said Stewart. “It takes a while to get everything to gel. We’re getting there. We changed cars; this is our fourth night on a Steve Kent Chassis. He’s been exceptional to work with. I think that’s the biggest turnaround for us right now. When you make a change, I can feel it, and that’s important.”
Stewart has three fast times this season and has been consistently timing well. Now, the good finishes are coming along with the good times. He has also moved into the top 10 in the standings.
“Qualifying with these guys is everything,” said Stewart. “If you can get into the top 16, it generally makes your night, unless you have bad luck. We’ve been concentrating on that.”
The top-16 cars in qualifying are inverted into the top-four positions in the heat races. The heat winners and runner-ups move to the dash. A blind draw takes place to set the dash line-up, and the dash finish determines the feature line-up.
“We’ve got a little bit of stuff rolling. I can’t say we’re 100 percent, but we’re starting to hit on all eight cylinders and I’m enjoying it. It’s been fun the last couple of weeks and I hope we can keep it going.”
Stewart has had two good weeks in a row with a third place at The Dirt Track @ Lowe’s Motor Speedway and a fourth at Rolling Wheels Raceway Park.
Stewart was second quick at Attica and that allowed him to clinch the Kwik Liner Cup. The drivers were awarded points during qualifying in each of the first 13 Outlaw events. Stewart had second quick time and Craig Dollansky was sixth. That was enough to propel Stewart to the title by one point.
Donny Schatz, driving for Tony Stewart Racing, beat Joey Saldana, driving for Kasey Kahne Racing, at both Attica Raceway Park and Eldora Speedway. The wins were the second and third for Schatz this season and Saldana’s second and third runner-up finishes.
Schatz took over the point lead when Jason Meyers blew a tire with only a few laps to go at Eldora. Schatz extended his lead with two more victories June 7-8.
Since becoming car owners, Stewart and Kahne have brought numerous nationally known sponsors into sprint-car racing.
Stewart started a second team this year with Schatz behind the wheel. His other team is sponsored by Bass Pro Shops and driven by Kraig Kinser.
Kahne recently started a second team with driver Jason Johnson and sponsor Remington.
A great job was done by the World of Outlaws and Attica officials to get the program completed just before a thunderstorm hit the track. The race was completed at 9:30 p.m. and steady rain was falling shortly afterwards.
After the weekend of racing in Ohio, the Outlaws have completed 14 shows this season and have been rained out 15 times. They’ve almost caught up.