CHILLICOTHE, Ohio — Donny Schatz won for the third time in his last four starts at K-C Raceway Saturday night, picking up his series-leading 12th Advance Auto Parts World of Outlaws Sprint Car Series triumph of the season.
Schatz passed leader Chad Kemenah on the 24th lap and paced the remainder of the 40-lap contest. In five starts at the three-eighths-mile track with the Advance Auto Parts World of Outlaws Sprint Car Series, he has finished fourth or better every time.
“It’s been a good place for me,” said Schatz. “We qualified well and got ourselves in the right spot. We had a great race car tonight. We had to borrow our time a little bit and get to halfway to burn some of the fuel off that thing to get it to drive forward.”
The race began with Kemenah, who started on the pole, charging into the lead with Schatz close behind.
Near the 10th lap, Kemenah found himself in traffic, which gave Schatz a couple of opportunities to make a pass for the lead. The caution flag waved twice in the next few laps, with Schatz closing in on the leader.
Kemenah continued to work the high side of the track after the halfway point. Schatz got even with him a couple of times on the straightaways before diving under Kemenah exiting the third and fourth turns on the 24th lap.
“You have to go where he is not, and he was not going to get off that middle and top,” explained the winner. “It was good up there, though when the track slows down you aren’t going to run 40 laps up there. We had to bide our time and try to get my tires set in there on the bottom and let the race track get cleaned off a little bit and it worked. It didn’t work as soon as I would have liked, but I’m glad to get back to victory lane again.”
For the last 15 laps of the event, Schatz had to negotiate lapped traffic while fighting off fast-qualifier Dale Blaney.
“I think we finished in that same spot in 2006 to (Donny) Schatz,” said Blaney. “We’ve always been pretty good here and always good against the Outlaws here. We felt like we had a good chance.”
The win for Schatz was the 82nd of his Advance Auto Parts World of Outlaws Sprint Car Series career, which places him in sole possession of the fifth spot on the all-time win list, ahead of 2001 series champion Danny Lasoski.
Jason Meyers scored his eighth-consecutive top-five finish in third, with Kemenah and Joey Saldana completing the top five.