Friday Night Showdown at The Dirt Track at Charlotte

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While NASCAR’s Coca-Cola 600 may have been on the mind of some race fans in the Charlotte, NC area this Memorial Day weekend, the real action began on Friday night at The Dirt Track at Charlotte Motor Speedway with Circle K/NOS Energy Drink Outlaw Showdown. The night ended with winner Trent Ivey taking home not only the $2,000 SECA Racing win after battling it out with Ricky Weeks but also an extra $2,000 from Dirt Track at Charlotte.

As this track kicked off its 15th birthday celebration fans in the stands seemed to buzz with anticipation as the bad boys of dirt took to the 0.4 mile clay oval.  The feature race of the night was the 30-lap World of Outlaw Sprint Car race.  As our team witnessed the ongoing battles during both the hot lap sessions and heat races, it was obvious that there would be a small handful of top World of Outlaw Spint Car contenders who seemed to have what it takes outrun the entire 20 car field.  While the No. 9 Daryn Pittman, who felt that his team would have the car to beat, would hold the top qualifying spot, an inverted draw for this series three heat races would put Pittman in the sixth position for the first heat race.

While hoping that this wouldn’t matter, Pittman wouldn’t have what it takes to hold off the No. 7S of the first heat race winner Jason Sides.  The second heat race winner, the No. 1S of Logan Schuchart seemed to be another real challenger and it was the winner of both the third heat race and final dash race who proved that no one would stop him from also taking home the feature win of the night.

Six time World of Outlaws Champion Donny Schatz would take the field to the fireworks start of the Outlaw Showdown.  While many felt the Tony Stewart/Curb-Agajanian Racing team driver would blow away the competition, the No. 15 would have to hold off second place driver Kraig Kinzer in the No. 11K who would drive by Schatz to lead the first 10 laps.image (4)

Following a caution flag, resulting from a two car pile up between the No. 41 of Jamie Veal and No. 60 Kory Crabtree on lap 12, Schatz was able to retake the lead.

While he seemed to run away from the field, Schatz would come close to losing his dominating
performance in the final few laps of this race after the No, 7 of David Gravel rocketed around then second place Kinzer while coming for Schatz. image (2)

In the final three laps, Gravel looked like he would take the lead and ultimately the win.  As he put the bumper to Schatz in the final lap and a half, but the No. 15 blocked the hard charging 7 to take home the
ultimate win.

“I couldn’t hear David coming, but I figured that somebody had to be there especially with all of the lapped traffic around us,” said Schatz.  “If you’re leading the race you gotta know that somebody is coming to try and take away this win and I knew that this could have happened to me especially since I couldn’t find a hole to get through the lapped traffic.  Fortunately, I was able to keep the car steady and fast and we took home the win.”

Following the exciting feature race, the hard-charging late model drivers of the South Eastern Crate Association (SECA) had an opportunity to compete for $2,000.  Led to the wave of the green flag by young rising dirt racing star Trent Ivey, the 25 car field seemed like they were ready to show the Outlaws who the true stars were as the dirt cloud continued to get larger as these competitors continued to take it 4-wide during this 25-lap race.

image (3)While Ivey would continue to dominate, the No. 1W of third place starter, Ricky Weeks would find his way to the race lead on lap 12.

This lead would be short-lived though as Ivey would find his way back to the top spot with a few laps remaining to put his No. 88 in Victory Lane.

“How awesome is that?  I am just so glad that Ricky raced us clean,” said Ivey.

“I can’t say thank you enough to everyone who came out,” said Ivey.  “We had a good car and I can’t thank my team and sponsors enough also for making all of this possible

RacingJunk.com salutes these warrior drivers on their amazing wins and we look forward to seeing even more very soon.  Stay tuned as we bring you the latest from dirt slingers across the nation far into the future.

About Ellen Richardson 491 Articles
Ellen Richardson is the author of Behind The Wheel for RacingJunk.com. This automotive sports junkie has a passion for telling an athlete's story while also covering various racing activities. Find out more about her at ellennrichardson.wordpress.com or follow Ellen on Twitter at @ellennrich or Instagram at elnrich33.

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