World of Outlaws

2007 Champion - Donny Schatz

Schatz Earns Second Consecutive World of Outlaws Title Donny Schatz earned his second consecutive World of Outlaws title, over the weekend after earning two Top-Five finishes in the inaugural Outlaws World Finals at The Dirt Track @ Lowe's Motor ...

Published: Nov 7, 2007, 5:21 PM

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Schatz Earns Second Consecutive World of Outlaws Title

Donny Schatz earned his second consecutive World of Outlaws title, over the weekend after earning two Top-Five finishes in the inaugural Outlaws World Finals at The Dirt Track @ Lowe's Motor Speedway.

The native of Fargo, North Dakota finished the season with a series best 19 A-Feature wins. He won at 14 different tracks, in 11 states, as well in Canada, in the World of Outlaws inaugural visit to Castrol Raceway in Edmonton. He won five televised races, including two during the inaugural "SuperClean Summer of Money" on ESPN2, in addition to three victories on SPEED. He finished the season with 70 career World of Outlaws A-Feature wins, which have him tied for sixth all-time with former World of Outlaws champion Dave Blaney.

Schatz also earned an amazing 71 Top-10 finishes in the 75 A-Feature events that were contested. He was running at the finish of all but two events. He also led the series in laps led, wins in the Crane Cams Dash, pole positions and money earned.

"We had a great year," said Schatz, driver of the ParkerStore J&J. "It is a good accomplishment with the group of cars that we have out here to have a record like that. We set our goals pretty high and I have them set really high for next year as well."

The always focused driver also made history by becoming the first driver in sprint car racing history to win the Knoxville Nationals, the Kings Royal, the National Open, the Don Martin Memorial Silver Cup and the Williams Grove Summer Nationals, all in the same season.

"You just want to win every night, irregardless of what race it is," noted Schatz. "It will probably sink in down the road. Every day it does sink in a little more and it's a confidence booster. Sometimes you can get ahead of yourself and anything less that winning those races again will be a let down to me. That is what I want and that is what I expect out of myself. We're going try to dig down deep and take ourselves to another level of intensity next year. Hopefully we will be even better."

After winning the Knoxville Nationals for the first time in his career last season, Schatz was able to win sprint car racing's biggest event for the second consecutive season in 2007, taking home a record $150,000 for the triumph. He also won in World of Outlaws action at the famed half-mile at the beginning of the season.

"The second one was just as special," said Schatz in regards to his Knoxville Nationals win. "When you take all the competition that is there all week and all of your cards are on the line. We had an awesome car there on Saturday and the weather was trying to mess with us. We had a lot of things that make it a trying week. Normally you come out of Knoxville feeling like you are riding a rollercoaster, but for us we still had a lot of races to win and to try and win this championship. It was a fun time."

After winning the season finale in 2006, he picked up right where he left off, by winning on the opening night of the 2007 season at Volusia Speedway Park in the Florida DIRTcar Nationals. Schatz finished the season with 21 consecutive Top-10 finishes. Also, during the 2007 season, he reeled off a string of 15 consecutive Top-10 finishes one time, and 13 Top-10's in another stretch. Using this consistency, he took the series championship point lead from Joey Saldana on April 21 at Tri-State Speedway in Indiana and never looked back, claiming the title by 146 markers.

Schatz has driven for his family owned team since he began racing sprint cars in North Dakota as a teenager. He claimed the 1997 World of Outlaws Kevin Gobrecht Rookie of the Year award driving for his parents and was able to reward them for all of their hard work with World of Outlaws titles the last two seasons. He will move on to drive for Tony Stewart Racing next season.

"It's been a lot of fun," said Schatz. "My family has been a big supporter of me since day one, and this is sort of my way of paying them back for everything they have done for me. Hopefully they can enjoy it a little more as spectators."

After a long season, with countless thousands of miles on the road and hours worked, the entire Schatz Motorsports team was able to celebrate on Saturday night after the finale of the inaugural Outlaws World Finals at The Dirt Track @ Lowe's Motor Speedway. For team owner Danny Schatz, the championship was just as special as the team's first title in 2006.

"There is a lot of enjoyment in this," said Danny Schatz, Donny's father. "All of the people that made this possible are the race team and Don. We have had the opportunity to help him and we have been very proud to do that."

Schatz and his team will receive the $200,000 champion's check on Monday night at the World of Outlaws annual award banquet in Charlotte, North Carolina.

-credit: woo

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