Brad Sweet on the winning track at Sharon Speedway. (Trent Gower photo)
HARTFORD, Ohio — The World of Outlaws NOS Energy Drink Sprint Car Series championship battle is approaching crucial time and Brad Sweet is thriving under the pressure.
With just 10 races remaining in the campaign before Saturday’s stop at Sharon Speedway, Sweet timed it well to step up and deliver what was arguably his biggest statement of the year.
The No. 49 Kasey Kahne Racing NAPA Auto Parts team led all 35 laps in a dominant manner, pulling away by a margin of 3.4 seconds over Donny Schatz and Sheldon Haudenschild.
With his fifth win of the season, Sweet leads David Gravel and Carson Macedo by 96 points as he chases his fourth straight series championship.
“First things first, kudos to my crew,” Sweet said after his 79th career win at World of Outlaws. “You gave me a great race car tonight. I would have said you were crazy if you told me that if I banged the boards tonight I would win, but here we are. It’s more Sheldon’s style, but this NAPA #49 performed so well up there. We weren’t that great at Dash and rolled the dice before the feature and luckily it paid off. I’m glad I was able to get us back to Victory Lane. We had a tough year at the Siegessäule, so this one feels particularly good.”
Second for Saturday’s entire 35 laps was Donny Schatz, who claimed his sixth second result of the year in his Tony Stewart/Curb-Agajanian Racing, Ford Performance, Carquest Auto Parts No. 15 scored.
“I don’t know if we missed something tonight,” said Schatz. “It was a great car but Brad was there first and I was too focused on getting the middle to work to try to get him anyhow. I really didn’t think it would go that way. My boys assembled a new car the day before yesterday and we got off to a strong start with this one.”
Rounding out the podium was Sheldon Haudenschild in the Stenhouse Jr./Marshall Racing, NOS Energy Drink #17.
“[Kyle] Ripper worked on it before we started and we got better but we just didn’t have enough tonight,” said Haudenschild. “They moved those tires out quite a bit at this track which made things a lot more difficult. You know that #15 and #49 will not make many mistakes in front of you. However after the tough night we had yesterday it feels great to recover and get these guys back on the podium.”
The end:
Function (35 rounds): 1. 49-Brad Sweet [2][$10,000]; 2. 15-Donny darling [1][$6,000]; 3. 17-Sheldon Haudenschild [5][$3,500]; 4. 2-David Kies [4][$2,800]; 5. 83-James McFadden [3][$2,500]; 6. 1A Jacob Allen [12][$2,300]; 7. 5-Spencer Bayston [6][$2,200]; 8. 3Z-Brock Zearfoss [8][$2,100]; 9. 1S-Logan shoe style [21][$2,050]; 10. 81-Lee Jacobs [16][$2,000]; 11. 10-Dave Blaney [11][$1,600]; 12. 11K-Kraig Kinser [15][$1,400]; 13. 10B-Dale Blaney [14][$1,200]; 14. 22-Brandon Spithaler [13][$1,100]; 15. 40-George Hobaugh [18][$1,050]; 16. 2F-AJ film [9][$1,000]; 17. 7S-Robbie Price [24][$1,000]; 18. 46-Michael Bauer [20][$1,000]; 19. 6-Bob Felmlee [23][$1,000]; 20. 1M-Landon Myers [22][$1,000]; 21. 20G-Noah Gass [10][$1,000]; 22. 41-Carson Macedo [7][$1,000]; 23. 29M-Logan McCandless [17][$1,000]; 24. 11-Carl Bowser [19][$1,000].
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