BEAVER DAM, Wis. — A new year, some new dirt and totally new circumstances could do nothing to deter Sheldon Haudenschild’s familiar path to victory lane at Beaver Dam Raceway.
The Wooster, Ohio, native led all 35 laps in Friday’s World of Outlaws NOS Energy Drink Sprint Car Series feature at the third-mile track, joining Joey Saldana and Brad Sweet as the only driver to earn back-to-back wins in the Jim “JB” Boyd Memorial.
His second-straight win at the track put the Stenhouse Jr. / Marshall Racing No. 17 back on top as the winningest team this season with six scores to their credit.
It was a win that meant a little something extra, as well. At age 28, Sheldon’s 28th career win with the series officially brought the Haudenschild family to 100 combined World of Outlaws victories, counting the 72 triumphs earned by his dad, Jac.
Haudenschild established a track record (11.025 seconds) in qualifying, dominated the dash and controlled the feature from start to finish. It was his fourth win in his last eight starts.
Sheldon Haudenschild takes the checkered flag at Beaver Dam Raceway. (TWC photo)
“This one is all of my guys,” Haudenschild proclaimed. [Kyle] Ripper is a smart guy, and we’ve got Stephen [Hamm-Reilly] and Jakob [Weaver] working their tails off. They deserve these wins as much as anyone else. We just needed a little time to click, but now were taking advantage of it. It’s pretty cool to get dad and I up to 100 wins. I’ve got a ways to go to catch him, but we’ll keep clicking away.”
Chasing Haudenschild to the checkered flag with his second runner-up result of the season was Carson Macedo. The five-time victor for Jason Johnson Racing was solid all night long in the No. 41, but struggled to capitalize as Haudenschild aced each restart and the subsequential run into lapped traffic.
Macedo had one final Hail Mary chance on the final lap, but couldn’t muster a big enough run and settled for a.514-second margin of victory when it was all said and done.
“Lap cars were tough tonight,” Macedo mentioned. “You really had to hustle around them with how much grip the bottom had. I knew that was probably my best bet, but I just couldn’t get there when I needed to. Definitely a great night, though, and we’ll take this into tomorrow hoping to make it a win.”
Finishing on the podium for the first time in more than two months was David Gravel in the Big Game Motorsports No. 2.
“It just feels good to get back up on the podium,” Gravel noted. “I felt like we maybe had a car fast enough to win, but you need the perfect start with how the track was – and we got that – but that red flag to start really hurt us. I’m thinking tomorrow night we’ll probably see a way different track. We don’t want to be here in third place, but I’ve been off the podium for a while, so it’s good to bring Cody [Jacobs], Trey [Bowman], and Zach [Patterson] back up here where they belong.”
The red flag Gravel mentioned was a gnarly three-car crash involving Kraig Kinser, J.J. Hickle, and Josh Schneiderman down the backstretch on the opening lap. The No. 2 had assumed early command of the lead, but the nasty tri-flip occurred before everyone could complete lap one. On the ensuing restart, James McFadden of Roth Motorsports went for his one wild ride on the first circuit.
The finish:
Feature (35 Laps): 1. 17-Sheldon Haudenschild [1][$10,000]; 2. 41-Carson Macedo [3][$5,500]; 3. 2-David Gravel [2][$3,200]; 4. 5-Spencer Bayston [4][$2,600]; 5. 1S-Logan Schuchart [5][$2,350]; 6. 49-Brad Sweet [9][$2,150]; 7. 24-Rico Abreu [8][$2,100]; 8. 18-Giovanni Scelzi [13][$1,950]; 9. 15-Donny Schatz [7][$1,900]; 10. 8-Aaron Reutzel [6][$1,850]; 11. 9-Kasey Kahne [16][$1,400]; 12. 3Z-Brock Zearfoss [14][$1,200]; 13. 73-Scotty Thiel [12][$1,000]; 14. 20G-Noah Gass [21][$950]; 15. 23-Russel Borland [23][$900]; 16. 68-Dave Uttech [24][$900]; 17. 7S-Robbie Price [15][$900]; 18. 1A-Jacob Allen [11][$900]; 19. 39-Jake Blackhurst [17][$900]; 20. 83-James McFadden [10][$900]; 21. 1AU-Marcus Dumesny [19][$900]; 22. 25-JJ Hickle [18][$900]; 23. 11K-Kraig Kinser [20][$900]; 24. 49J-Josh Schneiderman [22][$900].
Keyword: Dominant Haudenschild Rules Beaver Dam