His first sprint car victory came at Mansfield (Ohio) Speedway in 1999.
“Mansfield had an open competition show in 1999,” Schultz said. “It was kind of a run-what-you-brung event, but it had to be a sprint car. We had a cast iron 360 at the time. We went down there and ended up winning that day.”
In 2001, the Midwest Supermodified Ass‘n was created and the series encouraged sprint cars to run alongside the supermodifeds to help deliver good car counts.
“When MSA was formed, the founding members, especially Kevin Jaycox, were about mixing supers and sprint cars. A lot of the guys in the series came from the era where they mixed them regularly,” Schultz explained. “There were some rules and stipulations we had to abide by. We couldn‘t run down nozzle motors. We had to run the same rear compound tires the supers had to run. We also had to follow their two-tire-per-night rule, stuff like that.”
On Aug. 25, 2001 Schultz drove his sprint car to victory against the supermodifieds at Sandusky.
“I did end up winning with MSA that year in a sprint car. Things just happened to work out for us that night,” he recalled. “Jon Henes had a rear-end failure and oiled the track down. The place was kind of a one groove, slick track. It was pretty suitable for my style of driving with a sprint car. I got out front and held off Pat Shullick and Dave Shullick Sr.”
The following season the series made it difficult for sprint cars to continue running with MSA.
“MSA didn‘t really outlaw sprint cars in 2002, but they were making it difficult to compete. George Shullick, a friend of my dad and I, whose son Pat had been racing for him since he was a kid, had Pat approach my dad about running some supermodified shows in his dad‘s car,” Schultz said. “At the beginning, it was tough because the car had been sitting for a while. This was my first opportunity in a roadster. We kept running the sprint car when we could. We hit some HOSS shows and one or two AVSS shows. We primarily ran the full MSA schedule that year.”
Schultz didn‘t win a supermodified race that season but picked up a late season sprint car triumph at Mansfield.
Driving the Shullick supermodified, Shultz begam to develop as a driver over the next three seasons. During this time, he was runner-up in the MSA standings two consecutive seasons, while winning three features in 2004.
Dave and Lori May fielded a multi-car team and had some of the more competitive cars at the time. They offered Schultz the opportunity to drive their second car at select ISMA events in late 2005.
“In the summer of 2005, Lori May approached me about running their second car at the Hy-Miler Nationals at Sandusky that year. I talked to George (Shullick) and told him what I‘d been offered. He told me to go ahead and try it,” Schultz said. “George didn‘t always support the Hy-Miler Nationals. He would hit and miss. We kind of knew the car was not competitive at that time with ISMA. We could have made the show. It was gonna be a struggle to run 10th. I ran Hy-Miler and the two Mansfield shows for Dave and Lori that year.
“The Mays were looking for a full-time driver for 2006. Tim Jedrzejek had been driving for them prior to 2005 and got hurt at Sandusky,” Schultz continued. “In 2005, Lou Cicconi, Dave McKnight and Joe Gosek bounced around in the No. 7 car. I accepted the offer and 2006 was the first year I drove for Dave and Lori full time.
“It was obviously somewhat newer equipment than what George had. The car I was driving for George was built either the winter before or the winter after I was born. The cars Dave and Lori had been built in the late 1990s, so they weren‘t quite 10 years old. It was fairly good equipment with good backing.”
Schultz formed a relationship with shock-expert Dick Meyers a couple years later.
“Between 2007-‘08, we made a lot of changes,” stated Schultz. “The biggest thing was our shock program. My dad and I had spoken to Dick Meyers and bought a set of Bilsteins. It changed our program. I think we won something like eight times in 2008 and came just shy of winning the championship.”
In 2010, Schultz earned his first career MSA championship driving for the May team. But 2010 may have been the year Schultz got his big break. He was asked to drive the potent Dick Meyers No. 50m sprint car. The car at the time may have been the most feared winged pavement sprint car in the country. In 2005, the car had won 11 out of 17 AVSS events and two HOSS features.