Joe Gibbs Driven

The two-time defending series champion swept under Craig Dollansky in the third turn on the 20th lap to take the lead and proceeded to slice his way through lapped traffic for the remaining 10 laps to earn his series leading 11th A-Feature win of the season and the 81st of his Advance Auto Parts World of Outlaws career, which places him in a tie with 2001 series champion Danny Lasoski for fifth on the all-time win list.

“It feels good to get back to victory lane,” said Schatz, who visited Victory Lane for the 15th time in his career at Williams Grove Speedway and the second consecutive in the Summer Nationals. “It feels like it’s been a little bit since we won. We had an awesome race car tonight, especially at the end of the night. We worked on it early in the night and got going and put ourselves in a good position to get to the front.”

After leading late in the race on Friday night, before being passed by Daryn Pittman with three laps remaining, Schatz and his team found a couple of things that they tried in the finale of the Cleveland Brothers Summer Nationals on Saturday night, which worked for them.

“We learn stuff every time we hit the race track,” he noted. “It doesn’t matter if we have been to Victory Lane here or not, every time you hit the track helps. The track changed. It stayed longer and it stayed wetter throughout the night. These guys did an awesome job with the track.”

Schatz lined up fourth for the 30-lap A-Feature on Saturday night in the Armor All J&J, and moved into the second spot on the opening lap getting around multi-time Williams Grove Speedway champion Fred Rahmer, as well as pole sitter Paul McMahan. While he tried to track down Dollansky early, Schatz had his hands full with Joey Saldana. After losing the second spot to Saldana on the third lap, he took it back on the seventh circuit, and then set his sights on Dollansky. Schatz patiently shadowed Dollansky and worked lapped traffic masterfully to track him down and take the lead.

“It’s tough to pass anyone in wide open race track anymore,” explained the North Dakota native. “I was able cut the corner in three and four on him and keep up with him on exit to get a good run on him. I could get through traffic pretty well and maneuver around and I kept trying to see where I could go. I had a good night.”

After a runner-up finish in May at the track, Schatz has 14 Top-Five finishes in his last 16 starts at the historic half-mile. He made his first start at Williams Grove in 1997 and picked up his first Top-Five finish there in 1999 and his first win in 2000. He has racked up 31 Top-Five finishes in his career at the track which is one of the most challenging on the entire World of Outlaws circuit.

“I came here for a lot of years with my tail between my legs and couldn’t get going and just got really frustrated,” he shared. “I worked endlessly to try and figure out how to drive this place. It took quite a while to get that. It’s about car control and feel. If you have good car control and feel here, then you are comfortable. Pushing is probably the worst thing you can do sometimes because you wear yourself out trying to go faster. The last few years this place has really suited my style and I’m glad to come here.”

Dollansky led the first 19 laps of the race, as he was looking for his second win of the season at Williams Grove. He gained ground a couple of times late in the race in heavy lapped traffic as he tried to track Schatz back down.

“You are never happy with second-place, but we were decent early and it seemed like we had a left rear going flat,” said Dollansky. “We were kind of hanging in there at the end. It was a good run for the Larry Woodward team. Donny (Schatz) was obviously strong and we came up one spot short.”

Jason Meyers followed up a fifth-place finish in the opener of the Summer Nationals with a third-place performance on Saturday night, as he closes in on his first career win at Williams Grove. It was 25th Top-Five finish of the season aboard the GLR Investments KPC.

“It was definitely a good run,” said Meyers. “This is the best weekend the team has probably ever had here, putting two nights together. We are happy with what we learned here this weekend and hopefully we can bring it back in September and win one of these darn things.”

Fred Rahmer was fourth in the Miller Brothers J&J, with Joey Saldana in fifth aboard the Budweiser/Open Joist Mopar-powered JEI.

Doug Esh was sixth in the Pancho’s Racing Products J&J. Paul McMahan was seventh in the Casey’s General Stores Maxim, with Jac Haudenschild eighth aboard the Owens-Corning Fiberglass Maxim, Kerry Madsen was ninth in the TK Concrete Maxim, with Stevie Smith in the R.A.C.E. Foundation JEI rounding out the Top-10.

The race took two starts to get going and both times Dollansky shot to the lead, winning a drag race down the front straightaway with pole sitter Paul McMahan, with Schatz quickly jumping into the second spot with Saldana in third.

Dollansky jumped out to about an eight car length lead while Saldana battled with Schatz in the early going. Saldana powered his way around Schatz on the high side of the track in turns one and two on the third lap. This gave Dollansky an opportunity to pull away as he approached lapped traffic. He reached traffic on the sixth lap, allowing Saldana to close back in on him.

Dollansky was slicing through traffic on the seventh lap when the second caution flag of the night flew for a spin right in front of the leaders, who were in heavy traffic.

The restart saw Saldana keep pace with Dollansky and try a slide job on him in turns one and two. Saldana drifted up the track after this, giving Schatz a chance to close in on him and take the second spot in the third and fourth turns. The leaders were again in traffic on the 11th lap with Dollansky utilizing the high side of the track to weave his way through the slower machines.

Dollansky drifted high off turns one and two on the 14th lap, allowing Schatz to make a bid for the lead in the traffic. Schatz tried to take the lead by diving under Dollansky on the 19th lap, but came up just a little short. The next lap saw Dollansky caught up in a heavy traffic, and Schatz took advantage of this on by sweeping past him on the bottom of the track in turn three. On the next lap, Dollansky fought back in turns one and two as he tried to make a pass on the high side of the track.

“Once you get in some bad air and into lapped traffic that is what can make you or break you,” Dollansky stated. “We had a good car early and around the halfway point it started to go away from us. It was a good run for the whole team though. We are running strong and leading laps and the wins will come.”

As the laps wound down, Schatz ran on the bottom of the track, while Dollansky remained upstairs. With eight laps to go, Dollansky changed his line and tried to dive under Schatz coming off the fourth turn.

Schatz did drift high a couple of times as he maneuvered through traffic, but Dollansky was not close enough to make a move on the leader. With three laps to go Schatz really began to pull away and wound up wining by over two full seconds.

“It depended on if something would happen to him,” Dollansky said of making a late race pass. “They had a good race car and something would have to mess him up. I think he did mess up a few times, but we weren’t able to capitalize on it. Those guys run strong here and have a good package in place here.”

Meyers lined up sixth for the 30-lap event and lost a spot on the opening lap to Rahmer. He then had to contend with pole sitter Paul McMahan who also lost a couple of spots early. After getting around McMahan, Meyers set his sights on Rahmer and Saldana. Once he made it into third, he was able to gain ground on the leaders a couple of occasions in heavy traffic.

“Green flag runs always seem to be good for us,” he noted. “We have our car set up for long green flag runs and we seem to get better and better as they go. It was a great car. Charlie Garrett builds our motors and he is from out here and we really want to win one here for him. We are getting closer.”

Meyers, who entered the weekend with five career Top-Five finishes at Williams Grove, began the night by setting fast time and also powered his way to a win in the first heat race to earn a spot in the Crane Cams Dash. With his third-place performance, he extended his streak of Top-Five finishes to six races.

“Anytime you come here and run in the Top-10 is an accomplishment,” said Meyers. “These guys are doing a great job and we are back on track where we need to be. We sure want to win one of these money races.”

The Advance Auto Parts World of Outlaws Sprint Car Series returns to action on Sunday, July 20 at Lebanon Valley Speedway in West Lebanon, New York.