Nothing happens overnight.
Over the course of the past 10 years, Bobby Allen and his Shark Racing team have been rising to stardom.
When they started, the team was a World of Outlaws doormat that struggled each week to make things work, but this season, the work and the grind they used to keep things going is paying off in a big way.
The Shark Racing contingent of Logan Schuchart and Jacob Allen has become a contender day in and day out with the sprint car tour, and Schuchart could very well win a championship.
Now dawned by the brand on both cars, the team is seeing the success with the help of Drydene Engine Products – a United States company that has put increasing amounts of money into motorsports in each of recent years.
“Drydene is just big as far as everything goes,” Schuchart said. “They’re great to us. They’re great to this sport – dirt track racing, late models – everything. It’s just awesome to see what they do for racing in general.”
The company was first associated on just one of the Shark Racing cars, but has since sponsored numerous dirt track races across the World of Outlaws tours.
They’ll even have a title sponsor for one of the Dover NASCAR events coming up in August.
“They’ve helped bring Shark Racing to the highest level of sprint car racing and be able to compete night in and night out with the best teams out here,” Schuchart said. “It’s great to have them on the side of the car and I know we’re making them proud.”
Competing is one thing, but Schuchart has bigger goals.
The driver of the No. 1S kicked off the 2020 season with a pair of wins in the first three feature events of the year at Volusia.
It was a start to what could be a championship run for the team, and the pandemic break kept them atop the World of Outlaws points standings, figuratively.
Following the break, Schuchart came out as hot as anybody, rattling off W’s at Lake Ozark Speedway and then a pair during the Jackson Nationals.
The team battled adversity following the trip to Minnesota, and got separated from the points race by a red hot Brad Sweet for a bit.
“We’ve been good (this season),” Schuchart said. “There’s been a lot of times where we’ve given up points where we could’ve done better. We’ve fallen out (of contention) or blown a tire and that’s things you can’t do if you want to be at the top. You can’t fall out of races and you have to be consistent every time you go out on the track.”
Thanks to Sweet doing just that, the door has opened itself up for the red-and-white team.
The No. 49 finished 19th last Saturday at Wilmot, and then followed it up with back-to-back DNF’s at Terre Haute and Attica at the Doty Classic. Meanwhile Schuchart has been running near the front and captured his sixth win of the year at Terre Haute.
The trifecta of races turned a triple-digit points gap into a three-man battle for the top spot between Schuchart, Sweet, and Donny Schatz.
There’s sure to be some more movement this week too, as the series goes on a stretch of four races in five days for the second time this month.
“This is nice,” Schuchart said. “In Florida, you know, we ran four or five nights in a row, but they were all at the same place. This kind of feels like we’re getting back to normal. We’re running four out of five nights all at different race tracks. It’s a lot of work and it wears everybody off, but it’s a good feeling as far as a race team goes as we’re getting back to what we do best.”
Schuchart wouldn’t have it any other way.
The World of Outlaws Sprint Cars will start the week off with the Don Martin Memorial Silver Cup race at Lernerville Speedway in Sarver, Pennsylvania on Tuesday. The action, as always can be seen on DirtVision.
“We’ve been a lot better than in year’s past but we still have a lot of work to do,” Schuchart said.
| World of Outlaws Sprint Cars Standings | ||||
| Position | Driver | Points | Behind | |
| 1 | Brad Sweet | 3036 | -0 | |
| 2 | Donny Schatz | 3034 | -2 | |
| 3 | Logan Schuchart | 3022 | -14 | |
| 4 | Carson Macedo | 2980 | -56 | |
| 5 | Sheldon Haudenschild | 2962 | -74 | |
| 6 | Daryn Pittman | 2932 | -104 | |
| 7 | David Gravel | 2876 | -160 | |
| 8 | Parker Price-Miller | 2726 | -310 | |
| 9 | Jacob Allen | 2658 | -378 | |
| 10 | Kerry Madsen | 2590 | -446 | |
