Last year flood waters submerged Nodak Speedway preventing the World of Outlaws from racing in Minot, North Dakota. A year later and back on the schedule, the grounds were dry and ready to sling dirt as Craig Dollansky and the Big Game Treestands #7 team returned to the 3/8-mile on Sunday for their 7th appearance at the facility in front of a huge crowd.
With 30 drivers signed in for competition, ‘The Crowd Pleaser’ was the final car to qualify and made it a solid one posting the 7th fastest lap at 13.371 seconds to make the 12-car heat inversion. Starting from outside the front row of heat #1, Dollansky used a great start to motor into the lead and pace the field all 8-laps scoring his 9th heat victory of the season. Luck of the draw by way of the six pill then put the Aggressive Hydraulics on the pole for the dash where Dollansky again jumped into the lead and cruised to the win.
When the green flag waved on the 35-lap A-Main, the Elk River, Minnesota native battled with Donny Schatz as the duo drag raced down the frontstretch with the Eaton’s Aeroquip Performance Products Maxim leading lap 1. Racing into turn 1, Schatz captured the point by the exit of turn 2 and led until a red flag on lap 6. Restarting on the inside for the double-file restart, Dollansky closed on Schatz by lap 13 as the leaders worked through lapped traffic until another red four circuits later. Following another red flag on the restart, Dollansky hounded Schatz for the lead as the laps wound down but crossed the checkered flag in the runner-up spot to record another consistent finish, his 9th top-five in the past 10 events.
“We were better in the long runs and had a pretty good car,” commented the driver of the MobileStar backed sprinter. “With the harder tire it took a few laps to come in but once it did we felt pretty good. It was a good race with a lot going on with a fast track and just came up one spot short.
“It’s a work in progress every night but everybody on this team is working hard at what we’re doing and if we keep running like we are the wins will come. We definitely would have liked to get a win but we were close and have a good western swing lined up. I enjoy this part of the schedule all the way through the end of the year so we’re going to keep plugging away.”
Racing continues this coming weekend with two shows north of the border at Castrol Raceway in Edmonton, Alberta beginning on Friday, August 24th.
