Donny Schatz had mostly lost the Knoxville Nationals on Wednesday night and then he really lost it during his Hard Knox Friday heat race when he failed to earn an automatic transfer position into the feature.
That was it.
Ballgame.
Fin.
And then, just like that, Schatz received a second life and the strangest circumstance imaginable launched him right back into the mix for a potential 12th victory in the Granddaddy of them All on Saturday night at the Marion County Fairgrounds.
Jack Dover earned the third and final transfer spot in the first heat over Schatz, the fastest qualifier earlier in the afternoon, but then failed to cross the scales and was disqualified. As a result, Schatz was bumped to third and into the feature.
For perspective, Dover getting disqualified but the difference between the 10-time World of Outlaws champion starting the feature gamut from the pole of a B-Main to starting on the pole for the A-Main instead.
It saved his entire night and his entire week where everything that could have gone wrong this week had to that point.
“We always come here with a new race car,” Schatz said. “And we’ve been working really hard on it and brought it out Sunday (for the Capitani Classic) and it qualified well but it didn’t race so well. It just didn’t respond the way we wanted it to. We brought it back on Wednesday (for his prelim night) and we couldn’t get it to respond again.”
He had a bad qualifying draw, near the back, so he qualified outside of the top-30 but it also didn’t race well either.
“So, we put that car in the back of the trailer and it’s going to get cut in half, I guess. We took out the car we ran here in June. The car has some seconds here and it’s won too. It qualified well, we raced well and we have something for tomorrow night.”
But again, this would have been all for naught if Dover had simply remembered to stop at the scales as he was instructed before the race. It’s something that hadn’t happened since 2010 when Jason Meyers forgot to weigh in after a heat and it similarly gave Kerry Madsen the transfer.
“Our Nationals was over,” Schatz said. “The B Main, no one is coming through the entire field so I was dejected. And then he doesn’t go over the scales, and it happens, its happened before, Jason Meyers years ago. It’s part of it. It’s an honest mistake but rules are rules.
“They don’t even enforce that but they tell you and you have to pay attention. Whatever. That’s out of my control.
“But ultimately, we went from the outhouse to penthouse in that moment, and what comes around goes around and we were on the right side of it.”
And are you willing to count out the 11-time winner and his chances to drive through the top-20 over two 25 lap stints?
“That’s just it, the 50 laps, that’s what’s going to win us the race if we can do it,” Schatz said. “The last five laps of that race, the car changed tremendously. I just wish they kept us on the same tires, and made us have to manage it and you’ll see more of the real talent shine through, but file that under thing I can’t control too.
“But we have a real good car again and we definitely have a shot now.”
It’s a shot that looked impossible until it was suddenly was.
Not the only one saved
Logan Schuchart, the million-dollar man from last year at Eldora, also saved his race on Friday with a runner-up finish on Hard Knox night to undo a dreadful Thursday prelim.
The Shark 1S earned the other group’s fast time honors, had a good heat race, and traded the lead with Schatz before finishing second in the feature.
He’s in the show.
He has to feel relieved, elated, frustrated and determined in equal parts, right?
“All of that, that’s well said,” Schuchart said.
The Shark Racing car wasn’t bad but Thursday was just a matter of compounding misfortunes after being the penultimate driver to go out for time trials based on his draw.
“I really don’t think we changed a lot,” Schuchart said of his car. “I think circumstances yesterday going out late, and I thought we did really good for going out as late as we did, starting on the inside the heat races, I don’t think helped us yesterday.”
“We probably weren’t as good as where we needed to be. There are some small changes I think could have made us better but getting held up by cars in front of us and just seemed like making moves at certain times I’d get blocked by a car, and it just took too long to get going in our in our heat race.”
Schuchart is one of the best at reading lines, especially on a big track, and proved on Friday what it would take for him to drive up from 22nd.
“I know it’s happened before,” said Schuchart. “We’ve come from 22nd this (Schatz) come from 21st. I look forward to trying to put on a show for the fans and my team and I believe it can be done.”
Rookie of the Year
Emerson Axsom is just five months into driving winged Sprints and now he’s in the show in his debut season for Klaasmeyer Petry Motorsports and certainly the rookie of the year.
It was a mission according to plan as the No. 27 has primarily raced at Knoxville while taking some trips to PA, bookending a P10 finish in the Kings Royal too.
“I feel like we’ve been racing here at Knoxville for more than anyone anywhere else this year,” said Axsom. “It feels good to have all the work pay off. I wish we’re a little bit better. We found some issues from last night. I’m glad we found them now then not find them at all. It feels really good to be locked in, but I still wish we were a little bit better, but we just locked in the Knoxville Nationals, so it definitely feels good.”
Haase update
McKenna Haase remains hospitalized after this violent crash on Lap 1 of the first heat race on Friday night.
Haase walked away under her own power after a lengthy extraction from a car that looked like this afterwards.
Her mother, Kelly, posted the following update about her daughter:
“McKenna is currently in a lot of pain. She has chest pain, a pneumothorax in her lungs, ripped up mouth and tongue, very sore neck and body. She was to be transferred to Des Moines, but both trauma centers (Mercy and Methodist) are full. Knoxville Hospital is going to hold her here and continue to monitor the pneumothorax with x-ray and CT. We pray that they will not need to insert a chest tube. She is currently stable.”
Starting Lineup
- Kyle Larson
- Daryn Pittman
- Tyler Courtney
- Carson Macedo
- Giovanni Scelzi
- Rico Abreu
- Brian Brown
- Anthony Macri
- Brady Bacon
- Scott Bogucki
- Corey Day
- Brent Marks
- Bill Balog
- Sheldon Haudenschild
- Chase Randall
- Jacob Allen
- B MAIN TRANSFER
- B MAIN TRANSFER
- B MAIN TRANSFER
- B MAIN TRANSFER
- Donny Schatz
- Logan Schuchart
- Justin Henderson
- Emerson Axsom
B Main Lineup
- Brad Sweet
- Justin Peck
- Matt Juhl
- Cory Eliason
- James McFadden
- David Gravel
- Garet Williamson
- Dusty Zomer
- Brock Zearfoss
- Cap Henry
- Lynton Jeffrey
- Cole Macedo
- Spencer Bayston
- Kaleb Johnson
- MichaelKofoid
- Tanner Holmes
- Skylar Gee
- Parker Price-Miller
- Hunter Schuerenberg
- Kasey Kahne
- C MAIN TRANSFER
- C MAIN TRANSFER
- C MAIN TRANSFER
- C MAIN TRANSFER
Matt Weaver is a Motorsports Insider for Sportsnaut. Follow him on Twitter.