MECHANICSBURG, Pa. – The World of Outlaws NOS Energy Drink Sprint Car Series wraps up its fourth race in Pennsylvania in five days on Saturday night at Williams Grove Speedway with the $20,000-to-win Champion Racing Oil Summer Nationals.
Here’s everything you need to know and storylines worth following as the series reaches its 27th race of 54 scheduled features on the jumbled 2020 season.
– Even though it stretched out slightly Friday night, the World of Outlaws championship race is still one of the tightest in series history heading into the back end of the schedule.
Ten-time series champion Donny Schatz leads the way after a runner-up finish Friday night, but defending titlist Brad Sweet is only 16 tallies back in second place.
Logan Schuchart is third in points, 32 adrift of the lead, with Carson Macedo fourth (-76) and Sheldon Haudenschild fifth (-82) in the updated order.
– Speaking of Haudenschild, on a night where his points deficit would have taken a major plunge, he raced from the B-main and into the top 10 on night one of the Summer Nationals at Williams Grove.
Haudenschild buried himself from the onset, timing 21st overall and then backpedaled from sixth to finish seventh in his heat race.
In the 12-lap Last Chance Showdown, Haudenschild put it in the show from sixth and then wheeled from 24th to finish 10th in the 25-lap feature. The only problem? He lost 16 points to leader Donny Schatz in the standings after winning Thursday at Lincoln Speedway.
– Lance Dewease will once again try for career win No. 100 in a 410 winged sprint car at Williams Grove on Saturday night.
This is Dewease’s fourth attempt at the legendary milestone, and since he moved to 99 wins on June 26 in the Pennsylvania Speedweek opener, he has finishes of second, 10th and 20th.
On Friday night, Dewease set quick time and started the feature fifth, but pulled off on lap 15 of 25 because of a vibration caused by too much mud packed inside the rim of his right-rear tire.
Dewease is currently tied for 29th on the all-time World of Outlaws wins list with 17 victories.
– Since his Pennsylvania Speedweek win at Selinsgrove on June 28, Danny Dietrich has yet to finish on the podium again.
That’s a 14-race span, and clearly Dietrich and crew are scrambling to right their 2020 season, which had a promising start with the All Star Circuit of Champions in June.
Dietrich was up until 4:30 a.m. Saturday morning, piecing back together the same car that put him third in the ASCoC standings before he pulled off the circuit on June 26, he wrote in a post on social media.
The Gettysburg, Pa. driver has finished outside the top 16 in three of the last four races and has an average finish 10.1 since his last victory – not a lackluster mark by any means, but the battles for wins haven’t been there.
– Before last weekend, Anthony Macri had yet to finish on the podium that wasn’t part of a victory lane celebration this season.
Now, over his last five races, all with the All Star Circuit of Champions and World of Outlaws, Macri has four podiums to show for his work.
The only time Macri didn’t finish on the podium, Thursday at Lincoln, he set the overall quick time in qualifying before he shot himself in the foot when he got penalized a row for jumping the start in his heat race.
Macri’s last five races have gone like this: second to Kyle Larson at Williams Grove, second to Larson at Port Royal, third to Larson and Lance Dewease at Port Royal, 10th at Lincoln, and third to Shane Stewart and Donny Schatz at Williams Grove.