Donny Schatz Stars During Saturday's Hard Knox Matinee

Donny Schatz celebrates in victory lane Saturday at Knoxville Raceway. (Patrick Wigans photo)

By Jacob Seelman, SWN News Editor

KNOXVILLE, Iowa (Aug. 15, 2026) – Donny Schatz’s consecutive starts streak at the NOS Energy Drink Knoxville Nationals presented by Casey’s might come to an end this year, but as Saturday afternoon’s FVP Hard Knox preliminary program showed, the 49-year-old isn’t going down without a fight.

After taking the lead from Carson McCarl on a lap-five restart, Schatz led the balance of the 25-lap matinee feature at Knoxville Raceway, ultimately winning by 2.265 seconds in the No. 15 for CJB Motorsports.

It marked the 31st career victory for Schatz at The Sprint Car Capital of the World and his first on the half-mile black dirt of the Marion County Fairgrounds since Hard Knox Night two years ago, on Aug. 9, 2024.

Due to rain that pushed the Hard Knox program to Saturday under the sun and delayed the scheduled start of action by more than two hours, a format change means that even though he won the main event, Schatz will start 11th in the Championship Night C-Main instead of locking in to the big show.

That means there’s still a lot of work to be done if Schatz wants to line up for his 28th straight championship feature during the Grandaddy of ‘Em All.

“It’s awesome to win here again,” said Schatz in victory lane. “When you can’t get in on your qualifying night, you just gotta use the Hard Knox. The CJB guys have done a tremendous job. We’re making huge strides here. The track kind of played our way. We were really good early when the other guys weren’t, and then obviously it latched up halfway through there in the rubber.

“We’ve been battling weather. I guess we came out on the right end of it this time. … But I’m really disappointed in the change of formats. I guess it’s their baby, though. We’re just playing in it. We’ll try to do the best we can, I guess. Yesterday, if you came here for Hard Knox Night, you were racing for four lock-in spots … and now, you win and you’re racing for 11th in the C. So that’s a pretty big change up.

“But it is what it is now. We’ll see what we can come up with and try to make a charge.”

After starting from the feature pole due to winning the first heat race Saturday, McCarl got the jump on fellow front-row starter Steven Snyder Jr. and led the early laps before a caution for the spinning Will Armitage with two circuits scored.

McCarl led back to the resumption, while Schatz advanced to third on lap three in a quick charge from seventh on the grid. A second yellow flag, however, came on lap four after Derek Hagar and Cap Henry collided and both spun in turn four and restacked the field for a game-changing moment.

The first attempt at restarting on lap five saw Schatz pass both McCarl and second-place Gio Scelzi to move to the lead in turn two, with Scelzi then ramping McCarl’s right-rear tire on corner exit and getting turned hard into the outside guardrail.

That sent Scelzi flipping right into the path of Brenham Crouch’s No. 5, with Crouch having no time to take any sort of evasive action and ending up flipping wildly in his own right.

Both drivers climbed from their mangled race cars, but Crouch was later transported to a local hospital for further evaluation.

Another try at going back green followed after the accident cleanup in turn two, with Schatz using a turn-four slider on McCarl to take the lead for good following what turned out to be the race’s penultimate restart.

Schatz built a lead of more than four seconds before a final caution waved with four laps left, when 11th-running Ashton Torgerson slowed with power steering pump issues. That did little to deter Schatz, who ran away after the final green flag on lap 22 to take a commanding win.

Snyder’s runner-up finish marked his career-best run at Knoxville, with McCarl ending up third after starting from the pole and leading the first four circuits.

Chris Windom and Rees Moran completed the top five at the finish. Hard Charger J.J. Hickle came out of the Last Chance Showdown as the final transfer car, started last in the 24-car feature field, and wheeled up to an eighth-place finish.

With more worries about evening storms in the projected forecast, World of Outlaws NOS Energy Drink Sprint Car Series officials and Knoxville Raceway officials are in “hurry-up mode” trying to complete the Championship Night program for the 65th Knoxville Nationals.

Hot laps will begin as soon as the grandstands are cleared for re-entry and the track is ready for competition. Continuous coverage will air all afternoon on DIRTvision through the conclusion of racing action.

The finish:

A Feature (25 laps): 1. 15-Donny Schatz [7]; 2. 51-Steven Snyder Jr. [2]; 3. 27-Carson McCarl [1]; 4. 7S-Chris Windom [6]; 5. 45X-Rees Moran [4]; 6. 12X-Landon Crawley [9]; 7. 09-Matt Juhl [14]; 8. 2M-J.J. Hickle [24]; 9. 1K-Kelby Watt [18]; 10. 26R-Levi Hillier [20]; 11. 11N-Darin Naida [10]; 12. 33W-Cap Henry [19]; 13. 17GP-Brock Zearfoss [3]; 14. 40-Clint Garner [16]; 15. 45D-Derek Hagar [15]; 16. 6-Kasey Jedrzejek [8]; 17. 0-Lynton Jeffrey [21]; 18. 23L-Jimmy Light [22]; 19. 87X-Ashton Torgerson [13]; 20. 17A-Jack Anderson [17]; 21. 95-Matt Covington [12]; 22. 77-Giovanni Scelzi [5]; 23. 5-Brenham Crouch [11]; 24. 6DC-Will Armitage [23].

Lap Leader(s): Carson McCarl 1-4, Donny Schatz 5-25.

Hard Charger: 2M-J.J.Hickle (+16)