Logan Schuchart’s night at Dubuque started with his second engine issue in as many races.
The team broke a crankshaft in the engine, missed qualifying, and started in 15th before salvaging their 14th top five finish of the season.
The catch is, they’re down to their last engine.
“It’s nice when you can make something out of it,” Schuchart said. “I mean I’m worried about what we have going on and the position we’re in. We’ve got a lot of big races coming up – a lot of big paying races and we’re just kind of in a bad spot.”
The driver of the Drydene Shark Racing No. 1S, as well as his team, is feeling the pressure as the World of Outlaws go into one of its biggest weeks of the season so far.
After Saturday’s race at Beaver Dam, teams will take on five races in six days between the Huset’s 50 and Jackson Nationals next week.
If another engine goes out on them, there’s a chance it could take the team out of a race.
“Sure,” Schuchart said. “If I blow this (engine) up, I’m out of a job. Of course it makes me nervous. Hope God puts us in a good spot to where we can keep this thing together, work it out, get some more engines underneath of us and get back to where we belong.”
The toughest part of the the situation is the inability to get more parts in a timely manner.
There is a shortage on parts through the industry and the team doesn’t know when it may have another backup.
“Engine parts are kind of tough to come by right now,” Schuchart said. “COVID’s got everything screwed up. We can’t get engine parts. That’s part of what’s making it tough this year. Engines can’t be rebuilt when they need rebuilt.”
Currently, Schuchart is sixth in the World of Outlaws standings, 180 points out first place.
After finishing second in the 2020 standings, Schuchart knows he’s capable of having the car to run up at the front consistently.
It’s just been masked by the mechanical failures.
“I keep saying that I feel like we’re the best we’ve ever been or one of the fastest cars out here,” Schuchart said. “It’s just tough to show it when you can’t run warmups, you’re not running qualifying, you’ve got to start in the back of heat race and just charge up through.”
In the meantime, Schuchart will focus on driving – that’s all he can do.
His Shark Racing team has a big week coming, and the tightrope they were already walking on got even smaller on Friday.
“My job is to make the thing go fast,” Schuchart said. “My job is to set the thing up, drive it and put my right foot down. That’s my job. I’ve just got to try and be positive for the rest of my team. I know they’re going to work hard. They want to be winning races as much as I do.”
