When the curtain closes on the World of Outlaws NOS Energy Drink Sprint Car Series season at The Dirt Track At Charlotte next month, it’ll begin the process of assessing the season for every team and driver.
Currently fifth in the standings, Logan Schuchart’s season has been one of his best. Six wins, 44 top-10 finishes and a $1 million check highlight the Shark Racing driver’s run aboard the No. 1s owned by his grandfather Bobby Allen.
As the Hanover, Pa., native recently
“Obviously, there’s a lot that we’re very proud of. Winning by far the biggest race of my career there in July,” Schuchart told SPEED SPORT in reference to the Eldora Million. “But then, we won more races as a whole, Outlaw races and then just total than what we did last year.
“So, hopefully we can pick off a few more here as the season winds down. Obviously I’d like to be a little more consistent running with the Outlaws. I want to be running for championships. So, there’s definitely areas that we can and should improve on. But we’ll keep working at it.”
Entering his 10th full-time season on the Outlaws tour this year, Schuchart had lofty goals. Those goals primarily included a second DIRTcar Nationals Big Gator Championship and a first career World of Outlaws title.
Schuchart ran runner-up to David Gravel for the Big Gator Championship at Florida’s Volusia Speedway Park in February and is well out of reach of title contenders Brad Sweet and Gravel in fifth.
While those goals weren’t met, Schuchart said, “there’s a lot of factors that changed how I felt at the beginning of the year to the end of the year.”
Stressing consistency, the No. 1s team kicked off the season on a high note.
“As far as consistency, we started out really strong I feel like in Florida,” Schuchart said. “Had a very good program built over the winter that felt like what we had there to go out and run for a championship and run consistent.”
A snag in Schuchart’s quick start was the new rear Hoosier tires introduced in March.
“I feel like we got put behind at the start of the year when we switched tires,” Schuchart admitted. “We kind of struggled for the first couple of months with running them, put ourselves in a pretty big hole.”
Though his Shark Racing team rallied with temperatures heating up as Schuchart tallied four of his six Outlaw wins between June and August, including a clean sweep in North Dakota.
“Had a pretty good summer time, won some races, we were a lot more consistent throughout the summer,” Schuchart said. “And then here towards the end of the year, we’ve still had some, West Coast kind of up and down, had some races that we struggled a little bit.”
Despite struggling during the latter part of the season, Schuchart can hang his hat on the Eldora Million.
Dominating the monumental race at Ohio’s Eldora Speedway in July, Schuchart bagged the biggest single-day payday in sprint car racing history.
Over three months since his historic triumph, Schuchart and Shark Racing are still reaping the benefits.
“It was huge. Obviously for me it was life changing to win that amount of money too,” Schuchart reflected.
Most notably, the $1 million check has been a tremendous asset to the Central Pennsylvania team.
With shoestring budgets more common than not in sprint car racing, the extra money has allowed Shark Racing to work more comfortably from a financial standpoint.
“For the race team, you’ll be able to start on next year,” Schuchart said. “Basically, we’re always in a hole, struggling throughout the year to pay our bills and whatever else.
“But, to kind of get a head start on next year and get our cars ready, and really feel like we can come out of the gate swinging in 2024.”