{"id":48959,"date":"2018-02-12T12:44:32","date_gmt":"2018-02-12T20:44:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/?p=48959"},"modified":"2018-02-12T12:44:32","modified_gmt":"2018-02-12T20:44:32","slug":"donny-schatz-captures-first-dirtcar-nationals-big-gator-championship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/donny-schatz-captures-first-dirtcar-nationals-big-gator-championship\/","title":{"rendered":"Donny Schatz Captures First DIRTcar Nationals Big Gator Championship"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Donny
Schatz masters lapped traffic to earn his first DIRTcar Nationals Championship<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Sprint Car racing veteran Donny Schatz earned his 250th World of Outlaws Craftsman Sprint Car Series feature win this weekend after fighting off charges from Craftsman Club Dash winner Brian Brown, Sheldon Haudenschild, who scored his first victory at the first Sprint Car feature on Friday night, and Brad Sweet en route to his first ever DIRTcar Nationals Big Gator Championship.<\/p>\n

Pole winner Brown kicked off Saturday night\u2019s 30-lap feature championship race alongside Kevin Gobrecht. Despite Brown leading the opening circuit, Schatz was able to fly underneath Brown\u2019s FVP No.21 to lead lap two. Thanks to a yellow flag on lap six, brought out by Rico Abreu, Brown was able to muscle his way back by Schatz to lead laps seven and eight.<\/p>\n

Much like the second lap of this race Tony Stewart Racing\u2019s own Schatz overpowered the pole winner on lap nine and held this lead until the final lap, despite challenges from Haudenschild and Sweet, to capture his fourth win in five nights at Volusia Speedway Park.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were lucky we started up front,\u201d said Schatz. \u201cWe slowed down in traffic several times during this race, but we had a solid car, which made this learning experience a successful one.\u201d<\/p>\n

Friday night\u2019s feature winner Sheldon Haudenschild worked forward from a 13th starting position into the top three on lap 12 and even moved to second, ahead of Brown, on lap 16. Although the young driver, who is in his first year with the Stenhouse Jr. \u2013 Marshall Racing, brought the capacity crowd to their feet as he closed in on Schatz\u2019s No. 15 he was unable to pull the trigger to take the lead as well as the win.<\/p>\n

\u201cCatching Donny Schatz and passing him are two completely different things,\u201d said Haudenschild.<\/p>\n

While he was unable to accomplish this goal, Haudenschild was able to bring home an impressive third place finish behind the No. 49 NAPA Racing machine of Brad Sweet.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy guys worked hard all week and we are still chasing the No. 15,\u201d said Sweet. \u201cHe makes us better though, which is why we were happy to take a runner-up finish.\u201d<\/p>\n

While this feature race completed the racing action for the World of Outlaws Craftsman Sprint Car Series, we will return next week with the rundown from the World of Outlaws Craftsman Late Model Series. For continued updates check out DIRTcarNationals.com<\/a>. Stay tuned to RacingJunk.com<\/a> for the latest racing action in the dirt.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Schatz scores at first DIRTcar Nationals Big Gator Championship.<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":39,"featured_media":48960,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3,3470,5029,22],"tags":[4335,2044,1180],"class_list":["post-48959","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dirt-track-racing","category-news","category-racing","category-event-coverage","tag-dirt-car-racing","tag-dirtcar-nationals","tag-donny-schatz"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/Donny-Schatz_Feature-min-feature.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p42YSK-cJF","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48959","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/39"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48959"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48959\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48962,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48959\/revisions\/48962"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48960"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racingjunk.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}