From WSS
Brisbane, AU — (January 4, 2015) — Six-time World of Outlaws Champion Donny Schatz has continued his winning form at Brisbane’s Ausdeck Archerfield Speedway, by claiming round six of the 2014/15 ENZED World Series Sprintcars championship.
It’s the fourth time that Schatz has claimed the Revolution Racegear QuickTime honours and then converted it to an A-Main win, despite admitting that time trialling is not his strength. “It’s always a surprise when we time trial well. It’s not my strength at all so this a great start to the night,” the North Dakota native said in front of an impressive crowd. Brooke Tatnell timed second quickest followed by local live wire, Luke Oldfield, Dave Murcott and Wisconsin visitor, Davey Heskin. Muswellbrook’s Andrew Wright raised eyebrows by winning heat 2 by over five seconds, while fellow contracted driver, Brent Aprile claimed both his heats in a new show of confidence for the North Queenslander in familiar territory. With points calculated and the Gold Shootout dominated again by Schatz, Luke Oldfield would join him on the front row, with Andrew Scheuerle paired with Californian Brent Kaeding on the second row for the thirty lap feature race. Scheuerle would be the first to try and stick with Schatz from the start, marginally poking his nose in front of the Crimsafe #15 out of turn four, but unable to register an official lead. While Schatz checked out and was unchallenged, the main fight was among Kaeding, Oldfield and Mann, that ended around 12 laps in, when a minor scuffle between Mann and Oldfield, turned the latter around, leaving Kaeding nowhere to go but rolling in turn 4, with all three retiring to the infield. Australian #1 Dave Murcott assumed the second spot with a gutsy drive around the cushion and set out after the leader after starting out of ninth, while Scheuerle would battle with Tatnell for the last podium spot, before falling into the clutches of Mackay’s Brent Aprile, who would also dislodge the reigning track champion to take a super impressive fourth spot. Scheuerle would finish the race in fifth with the first four spots remaining intact after only a handful of minor stoppages, with West Aussie Daniel Harding recording his best result so far in the series in sixth, Hirst in seventh the hard charger after starting in 16th, and Brent Kratzmen, Darren Jensen and Davey Heskin rounding out the top ten. Schatz was clearly enjoying his Australian success, joking in the presentations that “this is the best way to spend a working holiday, and I’d like to see if I can extend it by about eleven months if I can!” The win was Schatz’ ninth World Series victory at Archerfield, being one of only 15 different winners from the 47 championship rounds contested at the venue. With the departure of Speedweek winner Luke Dillon from the series, David Murcott finished the round at the top of the ladder with 1601 points, with a 44 point lead over Tatnell and further 58 points back to Californian Kyle The series returns to Archerfield this Friday for night one of the two part Australian Open.
Feature:
1. USA15 – Donny Schatz
2. A1 – Dave Murcott
3. W2 – Brooke Tatnell
4. NQ42 – Brent Aprile
5. Q1 – Andrew Scheuerle
6. W12 – Daniel Harding
7. W17 – Kyle Hirst
8. Q4 – Brent Kratzmann
9. Q75 – Darren Jensen
10. Q36 – Danny Holtgraver
11. Q23 – David Whell
12. Q74 – Davey Heskin
13. Q59 – Kevin Titman
14. Q47 – Andrew Liebke
15. Q67 – Paul Morris
16. W46 – Lee Nash
17. NQ17 – Luke Oldfield
18. Q16 – Bryan Mann
19. USA69 – Brent Kaeding
20. W53 – Matt Egel