ROSSBURG, Ohio— It’s King Donny once again.
Donny Schatz was crowned the Kings Royal champion for the sixth time at Eldora Speedway.
The 10-time World of Outlaws champion led wire-to-wire en route to the victory in the 40th running of the sprint car crown jewel on Saturday night—his first win in the event since 2018.
“We tried a lot of different stuff this week, and we came here today and we were really good. But at this racetrack, it just takes everything you can get and you know, these guys just kept digging. I mean anybody in this field wants to run seventh eighth, 12th or 16th But we’ve done it a lot.
“Tonight, I don’t know what you say. I guess the stars lined up you know we’ve got ourselves qualified in a spot where we had to win that heat race, and if we did it put us on the pole for the feature. The racetrack was pretty demanding. But it is what it is and we got some rain. But the track was pretty demanding all week.
“I think every car won every race from the pole and that’s just the way competition is right now. It’s really tough but hats off to these guys. Everybody at Car Quest, and we got a lot of our partners with us here this weekend and we’ve had a couple of disappointing finishes but man this makes it all better.”
Defending winner Brent Marks finished second, 3.972 seconds behind Schatz.
“We had a really good race car tonight,” Marks said. “We just didn’t have enough speed to catch Donny at the end. But this whole Murray Marks Motorsports team just did a phenomenal job all night long and all week, really. We made huge gains and had some adversity to overcome this week. It’s just been a tough week so to finish second tonight it’s just an amazing feeling.
“Winning this race last year and then coming back and running second again this year just means a lot to me—means a lot to this whole race team. Just really proud of everybody and everybody that’s involved that continues to give me such an amazing piece to drive. I’m truly blessed to be able to sit behind the wheel.”
David Gravel, Sheldon Haudenschild, and Kyle Larson completed the top five. Rico Abreu, James McFadden, Carson Macedo, Kasey Kahne, and Buddy Kofoid rounded out the top 10.
Schatz led the 24-car field to green but yellow flew on the second lap. Entering Turns 1 and 2, fifth-place starter Landon Myers got high and flipped. Justin Peck bicycled and tumbled behind him. Larson, who started 15th, advanced to ninth in less than two laps.
On Lap 4, Brady Bacon got loose in Turn 1 then hit the Turn 2 wall while running 11th. Schatz remained at the point with Price-Miller, Gravel, Haudenschild, and Kahne in tow.
Gravel passed Price-Miller for second on the restart as Marks moved from sixth to fourth. Gio Scelzi turned sideways right in front of race leader Schatz on Lap 11 to draw Caution 3. Marks passed Price-Miller for third two laps later. Abreu entered the top 10 on Lap 15. Three laps later, Larson passed Madsen for seventh.
Officials called for a fuel break after 23 laps while Schatz held a 1.78-second lead over Gravel.
“When you get in the race car and you run hot laps, you know whether you’re going to be in the game or not in the game,” Schatz said. “The last three days, I didn’t feel I was in the game. We hot-lapped tonight, I qualified ninth and I could tell we had something in the car that I didn’t know we had.”
Marks, Haudenschild, Price-Miller, Kahne, Larson, McFadden, Abreu, and Stewart rounded out the top 10 before the break.
Just as the race restarted, the yellow flag flew after Abreu and Stewart collided in Turn 1 while battling for ninth. Stewart backed into the wall while Abreu continued. The race was red-flagged after fifth-place Price-Miller slid into the Turn 4 wall and flipped.
Schatz maintained the point as Gravel attempted to hold off Marks to no avail. By Lap 30, the driver of the No. 15 Ford checked out to a 2.263-second lead. Although Larson passed Haudenschild for fourth with two laps remaining, the No. 17 came back around to maintain fourth.
Gravel, who was two seconds ahead of Haudenschild, but nearly three seconds behind Schatz, never saw the No. 15 cross the line.
“Donny was in a league of his own tonight for sure,” Gravel said. “I feel like I went low and then actually went high. Brent (Marks) slid me and then yellow came out and then I went low. And then he kind of passed me back there and we just didn’t seem to be the same after that read. We weren’t as good. And it just seemed like Donny just had another gear than us.
“Obviously those Fords looked like they are maybe an advantage tonight when it just hammered down like that because here’s full throttle around there going as fast as you can. And yeah, it sucks. We did everything right today, but Mother Nature kind of made an extra mess, and those holes were pretty tough as well. But just happy to finish.”
After a challenging season with Tony Stewart Racing—and navigating less-than-ideal conditions on the track, Schatz said winning his sixth Kings Royal made him feel like a kid again.
“The track here can be so technical at night and it really took a lot of skill to get it working,” Schatz said. “I just pretended I was like 17 again and didn’t care. It’s hard to think back to all those, I mean, 28 years, I don’t even feel like I’m 20 years old yet, but it’s a lot of them.
“I remember my first one I remember one year that it was sponsored by Crown Royal and I could actually taste Crown Royal in my throat, but that might have been from the night before. So I don’t even know how to put it into words.
“When you think any of these guys, anybody here it says that I’m gonna go in six Kings Royals, you’re like lying to yourself. It’s just, you want to win one. And then once you win one, it’s like, you want to win another one and you want to win. It’s just part of how the mentality of one race with the World of Outlaws is you know, one isn’t enough. Today isn’t enough. It’s always about tomorrow. It’s always about wanting more.”
Pre-Feature:
Peck was fastest in qualifying with a lap of 12.827 seconds followed by Rico Abreu with a lap of 12.853, 0.026 seconds behind.
“We’ve had speed in the car all weekend,” Peck said. “Yesterday, I think I ended up ninth—which was our worst effort all weekend. Today, we got a decent pill draw. We got to go out when the track was pretty good.
“The 13 car has been pretty good. I knew that we could do it. It was just a matter of hitting my marks.”
Six heats separated the top 18 for the feature. The 2014 Kings Royal winner Madsen claimed the first heat victory followed by 2015 Kings Royal winner Stewart, Kofoid and Peck.
“The track will be different in the A,” Madsen said. “So we’ll see what happens.”
Lance Dewease, who replaced Anthony Macri this week in the Macri Motorsports No. 39M scored the Heat 2 win followed by Kahne and Bacon
“It’s really wild,” Dewease said. “It’s a tough deal to come out here because I don’t have a lot of laps around this place. We’ll give it everything we’ve got.”
World of Outlaws points leader Gravel won Heat 3 followed by Myers and Larson. Gravel was surprised by his result.
“This deal is tough, this format is really tough,” Gravel said. “I haven’t started up front too much in the Kings Royal. The track is really fast because of the rain. It feels really good to start up front.”
With a beautifully executed slide job in the final corner of the 10-lap contest, Haudenschild snatched the lead from Hunter Schuerenberg for the Heat 4 win. McFadden finished third.
“He just got me on that start a little bit,” said Haudenschild, who started second. “I was running with him and keeping pace even being down a car length. And that’s normally pretty hard to do, not use as much of the bank and be able to run someone down.
“I thought I had a shot the last four, and I kind of messed up in one, got some dirty air. Then I pretty much knew I only had one shot after that.”
Schuerenberg blew the engine of the No, 39 Swindell SpeedLab after his heat. Without a spare on the trailer, Indy Race Parts owner Bernie Stuebgen, offered the team a spare from the No. 71 team.
Price-Miller held off defending Kings Royal winner Marks by 1.103 seconds to claim the Heat 5 win.
“I’m just taking it by the minute,” Price-Miller said. “I wasn’t very good this week, so we been kind of down on ourselves but times like this is what keeps you coming back. Just glad that my guys haven’t quit on me. We’ve been trying really hard. Hope we can make this one worth it.”
Donny Schatz won Heat 6 and earn the pole for Saturday night’s feature—his 28th-consecutive A Main in the event. The five-time Kings Royal winner smoked the 10-car field with a 2.724-second advantage over Aaron Reutzel. Robbie Price came home third.
“Well, Scuba made the decision to do something different with gear,” said the 10-time Outlaw champion credited his crew chief with the ability to jump from third to the lead at the start. “And in the heat race, it’s all about the gear.
“I don’t know if his motor didn’t take off is good or not but this thing took off really good for the first time all week. So the timing is about right. I got into Turn 1 a little late and I thought we were going to have a festival trying to knock down the inside wall in 3. So hats off to the guys. I’ve got an awesome machine right now.”
Zach Hampton held off Justin Whitall to win the C Main. Noah Gass, Harli White, Cody Bova and TJ Stutts transferred to the star-studded Last Chance Showdown.
Macedo took command early in the LCS, with Jacob Allen being the first casualty after four laps. Spencer Bayston had just passed Logan Schuchart for ninth on Lap 10 when Brock Zearfoss tumbled after hitting the Turn 1 wall. Macedo remained on point followed by Sye Lynch, Gio Scelzi, Sam Hafertepe, Brad Sweet and Tim Schaffer.
With four laps to decide the contest, Scelzi passed Lynch on the restart for second. Sweet challenged Hafertepe for fourth—the final transfer—but to no avail. The two-time Kings Royal victor and defending WoO champ missed the show.
“I’m not really shocked,” Sweet said. “The (invert) wheel that they had the last couple of years, I think kind of solved the problem. It made the invert kind of move around. But knowing the invert, it’s almost better off tonight to maybe try to go a touch slower with the rain all day.
“I get it. We have a big crowd and they put the money on the line. This format’s always been kind of you know to create racing, but when the rain and the track gets kind of fast like this, it makes it really hard to overcome the invert. Everyone was within a 10th or so in those heat races, first to six, so it was all about the start and yeah, it just didn’t go our way this year.”
Follow Lee Spencer on Twitter @CandiceSpencer or email her at: [email protected].
