MECHANICSBURG, Pa. – After enduring a four-year winless drought at Williams Grove Speedway, Donny Schatz was not going to be denied during Saturday night’s Champion Racing Oil Summer Nationals finale.

Schatz forged forward from third on the grid, charged past point leader and rival Brad Sweet on lap 10 and then held off a determined Sheldon Haudenschild late to capture his 20th career Williams Grove victory – banking a $20,000 payday in the process.

The win was Schatz’s seventh of the season and the 290th of his World of Outlaws sprint car career.

“To win here tonight is awesome. It’s been a long time since we’ve been standing out here (on the frontstretch at Williams Grove) getting the trophy and the flag,” noted Schatz. “This team has been digging. I haven’t necessarily made the best laps every night and every race, but they’ve been giving me great cars. All we can do is keep building and working. When you’re having fun, that’s all you can do.

“We got qualified well both nights, kept trying things and made it all work out. It feels good,” Schatz added. “I had to move around in traffic and keep shifting my line. There were laps where I could roll the bottom and laps where I had to hustle the top. Luckily tonight, everything we did worked out for us.”

Though Schatz was consistent all night – qualifying fourth-fastest and winning his heat race – it was Haudenschild who started from the pole after winning the DIRTvision Fast Pass Dash.

However, following a red flag on the initial start for the flipping CJB Motorsports entry of Shane Stewart, Haudenschild lost the lead on the ensuing restart as Sweet surged to the point from the outside pole.

From there, the race went green to checkered uninterrupted, with the leaders reaching traffic by the sixth revolution and Schatz tossing a slider at Sweet for the lead in turns one and two on the ninth round.

Sweet countered on the other end and officially edged out Schatz for the top spot on lap nine by .002 seconds at the stripe, but Schatz pulled clear down the backstretch on lap 10 and never looked back after that.

Once Sweet had been dispatched from the front of the field, the man on the move in the second half was Haudenschild, who moved past Sweet and took over the runner-up spot on lap 13 before setting his sights on Schatz.

With 13 to go, Schatz held a second and a quarter over Haudenschild, but as traffic got thicker and more treacherous, Haudenschild shaved the advantage down to mere car lengths inside of 10 to go.

However, Schatz methodically found his way back into cleaner track in the final laps, holding the NOS Energy Drink No. 17 at bay and bringing his Toco Warranty-backed No. 15 to the twin checkers 1.484 seconds clear of Haudenschild in the end.

For the second-place finisher, Saturday night’s race was a massive turnaround from the Morgan Cup doubleheader in May, when Haudenschild failed to qualify for the feature on both Friday and Saturday.

“This is a testament to how much we’ve worked on our program, our qualifying and getting better early,” noted Haudenschild. “We missed the Dash Friday night, but qualified better tonight and got our car a little better. Trying to figure out how to pass here is big. Donny just doesn’t make any mistakes.”

Sweet, still seeking his first Williams Grove win, completed the podium ahead of Daryn Pittman and David Gravel. It marked a World of Outlaws sweep of the top five positions against the PA Posse.

Friday night winner Tim Shaffer lost an engine in his No. 49x at the end of his heat race and had to race his way in through the Last Chance Showdown. He ended up 25th out of 26 cars in the 30-lap feature.

To view complete race results, advance to the next page.