By Victoria Beaver

Donny Schatz took home his second straight win at Lernerville Speedway in Sarver, PA, on Tuesday night. This was the eight-time champion's fifth victory in the Don Martin Memorial Silver Cup event and his 15th overall of the season.

"It's been a good week," Schatz commented on his two wins. "This race team is incredible, what they do. When they get the race car good, you get in that zone, and they tune things and just keep making strides and making it better. It's good to have that feeling for sure."

Schatz stole the win away from Sheldon "Little Wild" Haudenschild, who was dominant for the first 35 laps of the 40-lap feature.

Schatz fell back early after developing problems with his front tires on lap three and jumping the cushion on lap nine. That caused him to fall from third to sixth. The champion found his way back to third by lap 22 and battled and passed Pittman for second two laps later.



Haudenschild grabbed the lead from Daryn Pittman on the first lap and was superior on restarts to anyone lined up next to him on each start. Haudenschild fought off challenges from Pittman for the majority of the race.

Haudenschild built his lead until Schatz started to close on lap 33. For the next two laps, the drivers exchanged places until Brent Marks brought out the caution by spinning in turn four with five laps to go.

The field restarted single file, and Haudenschild pulled to the lead before hitting the cushion hard in turn four. He hit the wall hard and flipped multiple times in front of the grandstands. Haudenschild escaped the crash, but it took a few moments of tense silence as the spectators waited before he exited the car.

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Schatz explained that Sheldon's crash could have happened to any driver. Schatz had trouble with the cushion earlier in the race, and one of the earlier cautions occurred for similar reasons.

"[The cushion] was getting pretty thin," Schatz said from Victory Lane. "In case anyone didn't notice, there were crashes. That's why we had that [caution] before [Sheldon] did it. There was two cars sitting there, and the cushion was kind of rolled up over the edge of the track. It just kept getting slower and slower. When it starts slowing down... I guess old age is making me slow down a bit too."

Haudenschild finished 18th after the crash.
 
Schatz won over the pole-sitter Daryl Pittman.

David Gravel, Tim Shaffer, and Chad Kemenah rounded out the top five.

Top 10 Finishers
1. Donny Schatz
2. Daryn Pittman
3. David Gravel
4. Tim Shaffer
5. Chad Kemenah
6. Brad Sweet
7. Kraig Kinser
8. Jason Johnson
9. Danny Dietrich
10. Carson Macedo