Donny Schatz found himself flipping down the backstretch during his heat race on the opening night of the Jackson Nationals on Thursday.
It’s something no World of Outlaws driver would want to have happen on a normal night, but it would play a much bigger role due to the format during this weekend’s Jackson Nationals.
Schatz’ accident means he was scored eighth in his heat race finish, putting him in a hole in cumulative points that will decide Saturday’s Qualifier lineups.
“That could have been super bad, but that’s just the way it goes,” Schatz said. “We found ourselves in that position at (The One and Only) at Knoxville last year with the format being similar.”
After the accident, Schatz found himself in outside of the top 20 in the multi-day event points.
That meant he’d have to go to the B-Main and drive to the top four to transfer into the feature show.
Failing to do so would mean putting himself in a hole that would make making Saturday’s feature nearly impossible.
“We salvaged,” Schatz said. “That’s all we could do. My guys – hats off to these guys – what they had to go through tonight, a crew should never have to go through. But, they did.”
The team got the car back out on track, ran through the B-Main and went from 23rd-to-11th in the Thursday night feature to drastically improve their spot going into Friday night.
They went through a lot more than a team with a backup car sometimes would, too.
Schatz’ team had to change the engine from one car to another to be able to run it.
“They weren’t even the same cars,” Schatz said. “They put in a ton of work. We’re lucky we had lots of help from other teams. We had to change motors. We’re really not in a position where we can tear up a bunch of stuff. We haven’t found ourselves in that position many times this year, but we were in it tonight. We’ll be back tomorrow.”
While the team had to change the engine from car-to-car on Thursday, though, it brings up the recent concerns drivers and teams had voiced about.
There’s somewhat of a nationwide engine shortage going on in sprint car racing right now. Engine builders can’t keep up with the demand that they are seeing right now.
“In certain areas and in certain times it has,” Schatz said. “I don’t think it’s hit anybody hard yet, but it might come July and August. Hopefully, we stay ahead of it and better than everybody else.”
The run to just outside of the top 10 actually positions Schatz in 12th in the overall event standings.
He’ll have all of Friday to improve on that and try to land himself in the top four’s King of the Hill on Saturday. Tonight’s action kicks off with hot laps at 7:00 p.m. CT.
Jackson Nationals Top Points Getters
1. Logan Schuchart 426
2. David Gravel 425
3. Brad Sweet 424
4. James McFadden 423
5. Kerry Madsen 420
6. Cason Macedo 416
7. Sheldon Haudenschild 411
8. Jacob Allen 407
9. Gio Scelzi 395
10. Shane Golobic 392
11. Kraig Kinser 384
12. Donny Schatz 380
13. Tim Kaeding 380
14. Aaron Reutzel 376
15. Brian Brown 376
FULL JACKSON NATIONALS POINTS
