Haudenschild Takes Friday Nights Oil City Cup Feature

by Tony Veneziano

EDMONTON, Alberta, Canada — For many drivers, having to change an engine prior to an Advance Auto Parts World of Outlaws Sprint Car Series A-Feature event would be means for concern, especially if they were scheduled to start on the pole position of the main event, but not for Jac Haudenschild. The veteran driver has one of the hardest working teams in the pit area led by crew chief Leonard Lee, and after winning the Crane Cams Dash to earn the top starting spot for the main event on Friday night in the second annual Oil City Cup Presented by Boston Pizza at Castrol Raceway, Haudenschild and his team were forced to change engines after losing a cylinder.

Armed with a new bullet under the hood, Haudenschild proceeded to lead all 35 laps to pick up the $10,000 win and the first win of his career in Canada . He held off a hard charging Chad Kemenah, along with 20-time Advance Auto Parts World of Outlaws Sprint Car Series champion Stave Kinser.

“We have been good all year long and a Top-Five car,” he said from Victory Lane . “It’s always good to win and there races are hard to win. We have the first one under our belt and hopefully we can get a couple more. The car felt really good tonight. We have been fast all year. Leonard Lee and Marie (Lapointe) have been working hard all season. We’re glad to win for our car owner Lon Carnahan and all of our sponsors.”

Haudenschild began the night by winning the third heat race which earned him a spot in the Came Cams Dash. After starting on the outside of the front row in the dash, he took the lead from Paul McMahan in that event to claim the pole for the A-Feature, though he lost a cylinder during the event, necessitating the engine change by his team.

“We ended up having plenty of time to change it,” noted the veteran driver. “We had a few little problems, but we got it all straightened out.”

The native of Wooster , Ohio led from the drop of the green flag and quickly opened a comfortable lead in the first four laps of the race. On the opening lap, Chad Kemenah got around Donny Schatz to move into third, while Jason Meyers gained two spots to take the fourth position.

By just the fifth lap on the high-banked 3/8-mile, Haudenschild found himself in traffic. He sliced his way through traffic, though was held up a couple of times, allowing second-place runner Paul McMahan to close in on him. At the same time, Jason Meyers and Donny Schatz were battling for the fourth spot.

While in heavy traffic, Chad Kemenah was able to gain ground on McMahan and battle him for the runner-up position. The first caution of the night flew on the 12th lap for a two-car incident.

“They did help some,” shared Haudenschild of the yellow and red flags. “It cleared the track up and we didn’t have to run in lapped traffic the whole race, just part of it.”

On the restart Haudenschild quickly opened a lead, while Kemenah worked on McMahan, getting around him in turns one and two, only to have McMahan battle back past him in turns three and four. The very next lap, Kemenah used nearly the same move in turns one and two to snag the second spot.

While in traffic, Kemenah was able to gain ground on Haudenschild, before the first of two red flags waved on the 21st lap. On the restart, Haudenschild again shot to the lead, while McMahan battled Kemenah tooth and nail for the second spot. The pair was going at it on the 22nd lap, when McMahan got sideways exiting the second turn, collecting Donny Schatz in the process. Schatz got upside down and had to go to the work area, while McMahan remained on the track.

Haudenschild again used a strong start in the Owens-Corning Fiberglass Maxim, to build a comfortable lead as the laps began to wind down. The final caution flag of the night flew on the 31st lap for a spin by a lapped car right in front of the leaders.

“It was definitely close,” said the winner with a sign of relief of the late race incident that could have ruined his night. “There were a lot of slow lapped cars out here tonight and it was a long race on a short track. We dodged the cars and started up front, and it always helps to start up front.”

Haudenschild used one final strong restart to pull away from Kemenah and Steve Kinser to pick up the 47th A-Feature win of his World of Outlaws career and he now is in sole possession of the ninth position on the all-time series win list.

Kemenah closed in on Haudenschild a couple of times over the course of the 35-lap contest, but could never quite get a good enough run on him to attempt a pass and would up second. For the native of Findlay , Ohio it was his best finish of the season as he continues to close in on his first win of the campaign aboard the Kantor Oil Company Maxim.

“We are getting closer to getting a win in one of these things and that is what we have to do,” said Kemenah. “If we hang around the Top-Five cars night in and night out, we’ll win one. I can’t thank my car owner Jon Kantor enough for giving us the opportunity to do this. My crew guys work their tails off for me. We are a little undermanned sometimes, but they hold their end of the bargain up.”

Steve Kinser had a very steady night, finishing third in the Q Oil Maxim. The native of Bloomington , Indiana gained a couple of spots on the opening lap, getting around Terry McCarl and Jason Sides. The third-place place finish was his 21st Top-Five finish of the year.

“It wasn’t too bad of a night,” noted Kinser. “We started 10th in the dash and moved up to eighth and up one row. We had a good start (in the main event). I was hoping to get a Top-Five when we started and we ended up third, so we actually finished a little better than what we thought we would.”

Kemenah also had a couple of close calls during the course of the 35-lap event. The late race spin by the lapped car right in front of himself and Haudenschild was the most tense moment for him during the race, for the driver of the Kantor Oil Company Maxim.

“The one over in turn two was really really close,” stated Kemenah. “I though he was going to take both Jac (Haudenschild) and I out. All in all, it was a good night. We ended up second and we can’t ask for much more than one more place.”

Kemenah and his team utilized a different engine package in his debut at Castrol Raceway. He began the night by finishing second in the first heat race and followed that up with a fourth-place effort in the Crane Cams Dash.

“The race track was pretty fast and we were fortunate to qualify and start up front in the heat race,” he explained. “My father-in-law worked his butt off back home on my motors to figure out how to make them take off with these guys. The other night we had some motor stumbling problems.”

Steve Kinser had an extremely close call on the incident involving McMahan and Schatz, as he was running fifth at the time and just squeezed through as the former spun and the latter got upside down, to gain two positions and put himself in position to battle for the win.

“That second one in the feature was pretty close,” said Kinser. “I thought I was in it and at the last second I went low and just missed it.”

Jason Meyers turned in another solid run to finish fourth in the GLR Investments Maxim to earn his series leading 36th Top-Five finish of the season.

Craig Dollansky was fifth in the Snap-on Maxim after starting the night by being quickest in time trials, with Kerry Madsen in sixth in the TK Concrete Maxim. Terry McCarl was seventh in the Big Game Treestands Maxim, with Jason Sides in eighth aboard the Wetherington Tractor Service Maxim. After getting upside down and having to pay a visit to the work area to get a new top wing, Schatz rallied his way to a ninth-place finish after lining up 18th on the restart after the accident. He extended his streak of Top-10 finishes to 44, as he remains the only driver that has finished in the Top-10 every night this season.

Two-Time WoO Champion Donny Schatz Looking To Build Victory Total in Return to Canada

INDIANAPOLIS (TSR) – Winning is all that matters for Tony Stewart Racing’s (TSR) Donny Schatz. The two-time Advance Auto Parts World of Outlaws (WoO) Sprint Car Series champion continues to lead the way this season with a series-best 12 wins. He’ll look to add to that total this weekend with a pair of races north of the border on Friday and Saturday at Castrol Raceway in Edmonton.

Following three top-10 finishes in his home state of North Dakota and a runner-up finish Tuesday night at Billings (Mont.) Motorsports Park (BMP), Schatz returns to action behind the wheel of the TSR No. 15 Armor All/Chevy/ParkerStore J&J on Friday looking to stop his WoO winless streak at eight. Even though he won the prestigious Knoxville Nationals on Aug. 9 and has finished inside the top-five in 19 of his last 22 WoO starts, the Fargo, N.D., resident is adamant about returning to a WoO victory lane for the first time since July 26, when he won at K-C Raceway in Chillicothe, Ohio.

Friday night, Schatz and the TSR Armor All team return to Canada for the second annual Oil City Cup at Edmonton’s Castrol Raceway. Schatz will be looking to repeat his performance from last year at Castrol, where he established a new track record in qualifying, finished third in the opening-night feature event, and won the finale to earn the inaugural Oil City Cup. The victory in Edmonton was his 14th WoO triumph in 2007 and broke a seven-race winless drought.

Tuesday’s second place finish at BMP gave Schatz 32 top-five finishes to date in 2008 WoO competition. The current WoO championship leader continues to lead the standings with 6,198 points, 119 ahead of Jason Meyers. He’s finished in the top-10 in all 43 nights of action this season.

Race fans unable to attend this weekend’s events at Castrol Raceway can follow along online on DIRTVision.com. Fans can listen live as Johnny Gibson, “Voice of the Outlaws,” calls the action as he does at all WoO Sprint Series events on the DIRTVision.com cybercast, as well as on the DIRT Radio Network. Go to www.DIRTVision.com for more information on all the site features, including updated results from each night of racing, as well as a chat room to interact with other race fans.

For both Friday and Saturday’s events at Castrol Raceway, pit gates will open at 2 p.m. MDT and the grandstands will open at 4 p.m. Hot laps are scheduled to begin at 6:30 p.m. The official track Web site is www.castrolraceway.com. For ticket information, call (815) 344-2023, or visit www.slspromotions.com.

Donny Schatz, driver of the No. 15 TSR/Armor All/Chevy/ParkerStore J&J:

You base your success on wins, and wins only. You’ve been stuck on 12 since July 26. How much attention do you pay to the time between wins?

“I try to forget the last race as soon as it’s over and start thinking about the next one. Experience tells me that your next race is always the most important one. But, yeah, we think about the wins and why we haven’t been winning in-between them. The only way you get better is by staying ahead of the competition, and we’re trying to do that.

“Last week, we found ourselves at three tracks where track position was everything. We qualified well all three nights in North Dakota, and in two cases didn’t make the draw positions for the dash and that really hurt our chances. Tuesday night we put ourselves in a good position to break through by winning our heat and drawing the pole for the dash, but traffic didn’t go our way in the feature. So we’ll have to keep fighting out there. We seem to be streaky at times, as far as getting wins in bunches. We’re hoping to start another streak in Edmonton Friday night.”

This weekend, you return to Castrol Raceway. Does previous success at the track add to your confidence?

“We’re always pretty confident, but going to places where you’ve been good before helps. The thing you can’t do is be overconfident because things in this sport are always changing. Something that worked before may not work now, and what we did at Castrol last year may not be good this year. That’s where having a good crew comes into play. This TSR crew (Rick Warner, Shane Bowers, and Kyle Sundby) is the best out here and I know we’ll all be paying attention to details so that we can get the Armor All, Chevy, ParkerStore No. 15 back where we want to be – in victory lane.”

Saldana Wins at Billings Motorsports Park

Billings, MT — Joey Saldana has had a couple of races slip away in lapped traffic this season, and he made sure that was not the case on Tuesday night at Billings Motorsports Park, as he used traffic to his advantage to catch and pass two-time defending series champion Donny Schatz to pick up his third Advance Auto Parts World of Outlaws Sprint Car Series win of the season.

Saldana lined up seventh for the 25-lap contest and gained a couple of spots on the opening lap to move into the Top-Five. By just the seventh lap, he found himself in the second position and began to track down Schatz, the early leader, who was mired in heavy traffic. Saldana used the low of the track in turns three and four to take the lead from Schatz on the 10th lap. He would lead the rest of the way, to pick up the 37th A-Feature win of his career, which was worth $10,000.

“This is huge for our team,” shared Saldana. “We have definitely been in position to win races and have just had bad breaks and luck. Then you start to question what you are doing as a driver and as a team. For us to come out tonight and to do it on a track where there really wasn’t any passing, but we could pass was great for this team.

After Saldana took the lead in the traffic aboard the Budweiser/Open Joist Mopar-powered JEI, Schatz charged right back at him on the very next lap to retake the lead off the high side of turns one and two. Saldana powered his way back ahead down the back straightaway, to officially be credited the leader. On the next lap, Schatz charged around Saldana on the back straightaway to take the lead, but the caution flag flew before the lap was completed, allowing Saldana to retain the lead.

“It was tough,” said Saldana of lapped traffic. “When I was racing Donny (Schatz) and got by him, I actually got into a guy and knocked my front nose win off. I knew I needed it to stay on there or I would be in trouble. At the end, I was being very patient with a few guys. I knew if I could hit my marks, it would be tough for him to get around me. I would have had to have made a big mistake. I just tried to keep my car clean once I got the lead.”

Saldana lined up for the final restart of the night with 12 laps to go, with Schatz right behind him. He used a strong start to quickly pull away to a comfortable lead in open race track. Late in the race he encountered lapped traffic again, to allow Schatz to close back up on him.

“I was thinking, don’t screw up,” Saldana said of the restarts. “It’s so easy to screw up and miss your marks and move up. I got Donny (Schatz) in traffic and I don’t think he realized those guys were right on him. To get him in traffic, where he usually gets me was a huge accomplishment. It was a good run for us and hopefully we can continue to run up front.”

After coming so close to winning a number of times over the last few weeks, Saldana was very happy with how the race unfolded. It also served as a confidence boost heading up to Castrol Raceway in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, where he ran strong last season.

“We passed Donny Schatz, and that is huge for me personally,” explained Saldana. “Your confidence gets shot down pretty easily racing with these guys every night. It was a good night and we know that when our car finishes, it can win. I can’t thank my team enough and everyone that stands behind this team. This was a good night for us.”

Schatz, who won the Crane Cams Dash, started on the pole and jumped out to a pretty sizeable lead during the first few laps of the 25-lap A-Feature. The field was bunched up on the fourth lap after Kerry Madsen spun, leading to the first caution of the night. On the restart, Schatz opened a healthy lead, as Joey Saldana was battling Shane Stewart to second. The spot went to Saldana on the seventh last as he used the low side of the second turn. By the eighth lap, Schatz was in traffic, with Saldana gaining ground on him. Schatz would wind up second in the Armor All J&J.

“We had a good car, and we probably just pushed a little too hard,” said Schatz. “I got to a lapped car that was just about spun out and I had no choice but to about crash myself and we were lucky that we only got passed by one car. That’s just racing and the way it goes. We have won them that way and tonight we lost it that way.”

Shane Stewart finished third on Tuesday night as he continues to battle with Terry McCarl for the 10th spot in the series championship standings. Stewart ran second for a number of laps early in the race, before Saldana got around him. In traffic, he gained a large portion of ground on the two leaders.

“We put ourselves in position to run up front and that is key to any World of Outlaws race,” said Stewart. “I have to thank the crew, they have been doing a great job for me. It’s nice to get a good finish and hopefully we can turn this team around and finish the year off on a good note.”

Jason Meyers finished fourth in the GLR Investments KPC, after starting seventh. He leads the series with 34 Top-Five finishes as he chases his first career World of Outlaws title.

Tony Bruce Jr. picked up another Top-Five finish as he was fifth in the Best Well Service Maxim. Jac Haudenschild was sixth in the Owens-Corning Fiberglass Maxim, with Jason Sides, who began the night by setting fast time in the Wetherington Tractor Service Maxim in seventh. Steve Kinser in the Q Oil Maxim was eighth, with Daryn Pittman in ninth aboard the Titan Garages Maxim. Terry McCarl rounded out the Top-10 in the Big Game Treestands Maxim.

While leading, Schatz had to get on the brakes extremely hard on the eighth and ninth laps, before Saldana moved to the point. At one point, he was almost completely sideways as he worked not to lose any spots or spin, as the cars ahead of him had him all bottled up.

“Some of those guys, you would show them a nose and they wanted to keep you behind them,” commented Schatz. “You are going to have that when the race track is like that. It was right around the tires (down low) and we did the best we could and came up one spot short.”

Schatz had another chance at Saldana on the lap 13 restart, and got a little lapped traffic over the last few laps, but it was not quite enough. Over the last five laps of the race, Schatz constantly had one lapped car between himself and the leader. The second-place finish for the North Dakota native was 43rd Top-10 finish of the season, as he remains the only driver that has Top-10 runs in every A-Feature event this seasons.

“We had to get to lapped traffic,” Schatz said. “You are not going to pass anyone in open race track. Joey (Saldana) wouldn’t have passed me and we couldn’t have been able to pass him unless we had some sort of lapped traffic or a reason to slow him down. That’s just the way it goes. A lot of times when you are running second, you are in the cat bird’s seat and I didn’t expect that to be the case tonight.”

Like the other leaders, Stewart also battled the lapped machine as he tried to work his Roth Motorsports KPC to the front of the field. His third place-performance was the 21 Top-10 finish f the season for him and his team.

“It was tough to get around some of those guys,” said Stewart. “Many of them were local guys, so they knew what to expect and knew that they had to hug the tires. There were a few lapped cars that were a little nuisance, but we were able to get around them clean.”

Stewart did not really want to see the final yellow of the night, as he was gaining ground on the leaders while they were mired in traffic.

“Before the last yellow came out, Donny (Schatz) and Joey (Saldana) got to passing each other a little bit and I was able to catch back up to them,” he noted. “I think if it would have stayed green, we would have had a chance to win the race. At that point of the race, it was all about timing the cars right. Donny (Schatz) had just gotten back by Joey (Saldana) and the yellow came out. Who knows, but it was a good run for us and hopefully we can keep this going.”

Kraig Kinser finished in the 11th position.

The Advance Auto Parts World of Outlaws Sprint Car Series returns to action on Friday, August 22 at Castrol Raceway in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada for the second annual Oil City Cup.

Gold Rush Tour Continues For Kraig Kinser and Tony Stewart Racing

INDIANAPOLIS (TSR) –Tony Stewart Racing’s (TSR) 23-year-old Sprint car racer Kraig Kinser was looking for anything positive that could provide a little confidence during his roller-coaster season. Ironically, he found it Sunday night in Minot, N.D., the hometown of his TSR teammate Donny Schatz.

Kinser, who competes in the Advance Auto Parts World of Outlaws (WoO) Sprint Car Series driving the TSR No. 20 Bass Pro Shops/Chevy/JD Byrider Maxim, put together a solid night in Sunday’s finale of the Gerdau Ameristeel Northern Tour, finishing a season-best third at Minot’s Nodak Speedway. Now, the goal is to build on that momentum this week when the WoO series returns to a familiar stop in Montana and makes it’s second-ever appearance in Edmonton.

The 2004 Kevin Gobrecht WoO Rookie of the Year Award winner was looking forward to Tuesday night’s race at Billings (Mont.) Motorsports Park. Kinser has five career starts at the high-banked 3/8-mile dirt oval and each time has finished inside the top-10, including third the last time the Outlaws competed at the track in August 2005. Kinser finished 11th in Tuesday’s A-main event.

Following yesterday’s race, Kinser and the Bass Pro Shops team will make the 720-plus mile trek into Canada for Friday and Saturday’s second annual Oil City Cup at Castrol Raceway in Edmonton. It will be Kinser’s debut at the high-banked, 3/8-mile oval, which gives him reason to be optimistic since last weekend’s third-place finish at Nodak also came in a track debut.

Kinser enters this week’s racing action ranked 14th in the WoO Sprint Series Championship standings. He has made 39 series starts thus far in 2008, having earned three top-five finishes and 12 top-10s.

Race fans unable to attend this week’s events can catch all of the action from Billings Motorsports Park and Castrol Raceway on DIRTVision.com. Fans can listen live as Johnny Gibson, “Voice of the Outlaws,” calls the action as he does at all WoO Sprint Series events on the DIRTVision.com cybercast, as well as on the DIRT Radio Network. Go to www.DIRTVision.com for more information on all the site features, including updated results from each night of racing, as well as a chat room to interact with other race fans.

For both Friday and Saturday’s events at Castrol Raceway, pit gates will open at 2 p.m. MDT and the grandstands will open at 4 p.m. Hot laps are scheduled to begin at 6:30 p.m. The official track Web site is www.castrolraceway.com. For ticket information, call (815) 344-2023, or visit www.slspromotions.com.

Quotes from Kraig Kinser, driver of the No. 20 TSR/Bass Pro Shops/Maxim:

Sunday’s third-place run was a much-needed boost for the team. How do you keep that going?

“Sunday night was a great race for us. We learned quite a bit about our car. Now we just have to take the right steps to get this team rolling forward, to get me rolling forward to get confidence, so everybody rolls forward.

“It’s about the basics. Qualifying good enough to start up front in the heats and then taking advantage of the situations. We have a lot of great guys here and great support from all of our sponsors backing us. It’s just about building on each step. Sunday, we qualified decent, had a good heat race and dash, and then made some progress in the feature. Last night, we were able to build on that progress.”

This week you return to Billings, where you’ve run before, and Castrol, where you’ve never been. How do you approach each track?

“The good thing about Billings is that we’ve raced there before and had some success. I raced from the last starting spot to eighth one night there after racing an ARCA car. I felt like I should have won the night (TSR teammate) Donny (Schatz) broke while he was leading, but we ended up third that night (August 20, 2005).  My guys (Steve Swenson, Mike Cool and Bob Curtis) have been doing a good job, so I’m sure they’ll have the Bass Pro Shops Chevy fast again this week. As far as Castrol goes, I’m pretty sure the 20 car was fast there last year, so hopefully we can continue getting better and have another good week.”