PERFECTION: Carson Macedo sweeps the night at Atomic for second win of the season
The Lemoore, CA native is making his first trip to Victory Lane since early March
CHILLICOTHE, OH (May 27, 2023) – So many variables that could go wrong go into a night of Sprint World of Outlaws NOS Energy Drink car racing.
A bad pill draw could hurt a qualifying effort. A heat race gone wrong. A low draw for the Dash. And of course, the chaos of a 24-car feature can derail a night at any moment.
Making it through each phase of a night of racing is a monumental task, one that Carson Macedo managed to conquer Saturday night at Atomic Speedway.
Macedo captured the Simpson QuickTime Award, topped the CASE No.1 Engine Oil Heat One and dominated the Toyota Racing Dash. Then finally, Macedo outlasted Donny Schatz in the NOS Energy Drink feature before holding off a late charge from David Gravel to finish off a sweep of the night at the Chillicothe, OH oval.
And the icing on the cake? Macedo celebrated his 27th birthday the day before, making the win a belated birthday present.
“My guys did an amazing job all night,” Macedo said. “Hell of a job sweeping the night. Fast time. He won the Heat. He won the Dash. And to get the feature win was pretty special. We’ve been a little dry in the win column, but I think good to get one tonight. I know we were really close. We were in contention, but we just couldn’t close it out, but we’re happy with the job we were able to do tonight.”
As Macedo mentioned, the win ended a 19-race winless streak dating back to March 5 at Volusia Speedway Park. Macedo now has 30 World of Outlaws career wins, good enough to tie Bobby Allen for 22nd all-time. The Lemoore, CA native is just the third Californian to reach the 30-win mark, joining Brad Sweet (84 wins) and Jason Meyers (58 wins). After struggling early in his career at 3/8 of a mile, Atomic is now the 21st different track at which Macedo has beaten in series competition.
“(Crew chief) Philip (Dietz) has done a great job on my car,” Macedo said. “I think in the past here I’ve had trouble with the car driving itself down the middle. I feel like no matter what I’ve done here in the past, I’d end up with my right rear hanging off the corners.”
Macedo’s road to his second win of the season was anything but an easy ride.
Starting from the pole, Macedo took the lead for the opening circuit aboard the #41 Jason Johnson Racing as Sheldon Haudenschild, Donny Schatz and David Gravel were three wide for second behind him.
Schatz emerged in second place and immediately went to work chasing down Macedo. On an early restart, Schatz went side by side with Macedo for several laps in a fierce battle for the lead. Macedo managed to keep.
On the next restart with 26 laps to go, Gravel slipped Schatz into second briefly before Schatz moved back a few laps later. Shortly after retaking second, Schatz rolled the #15 Tony Stewart/Curb Agajanian Racing perfectly by Macedo to lead lap 18.
Over the next few laps, Macedo and Schatz showed driving excellence in a back-and-forth duel. Macedo regained the lead on the cushion only to have Schatz come back as Macedo battled a slower car.
On lap 24, Macedo roared around the cushion to take the top spot for good. The 27-year-old pulled away from Schatz and held off a charging David Gravel to complete the sweep of the night.
“There were so many stages in the race that I didn’t know where to be,” explained Macedo. “I felt like Donny had such good speed on the bottom. The two times I moved I felt like I was in no man’s land down there. And I thought staying at the top and what he was giving me would be my result. I feel like the top, luckily for me, cleaned up really well there with probably about 15 or 12 (laps) to go. And I could just feel myself getting caught again.”
Behind Macedo, Gravel took second for his series-best 11th podium of the season with Big Game Motorsports. The Watertown, CT native came away very pleased with the result and found restart positioning to be vital to getting it done.
“I made a little mistake in one of the cars, but honestly very happy to run second,” said Gravel. “I thought there for a while that I wasn’t going to get on the podium, and my car was really good on the restarts and I came back fourth. Every time he got back into fourth, he could make a good run down the straight. Restarting the third at the bottom of that plane I couldn’t get going.
“We had three different bar combos tonight, trying all kinds of things. And to be trying all those things and getting on the podium is a good night.”
Donny Schatz rounded out the top three after challenging for the win throughout the race. The ten-time champion and his team continued with their sixth podium in the last eight races. Schatz gave it his all, even attempting a lower line when the track became the dominant maximum, but fell just short of his third win of 2023. Although he wanted the win very much, Schatz came out buoyed after another strong outing.
It’s pretty hard to get back to that bottom once you’ve abused them (tyres),” said Schatz. “I tried and lost another place, but second or third, it’s not a win and it’s not much to me. When you go for the win, sometimes that’s what happens. Hats off to the entire Carquest team. These guys have a great race car. What we did in the Dash was incredible in the end, and we have good driving everywhere.”
Sheldon Haudenschild and Gio Scelzi rounded out the top five.
With Brad Sweet finishing 11th, both Macedo and Gravel closed in on him in the championship hunt. Sweet now leads Gravel by just 10 points and Macedo by 14.
Cole Duncan won the KSE Racing Hard Charger of the night with a 17 to 10 drive.
Macedo’s Simpson QuickTime to start the night was his sixth of the season (tied for most) and 25th of his career.
Macedo’s win in CASE No.1 Engine Oil Heat One was the 91st of his career. Buddy Kofoid topped NOS Energy Drink Heat Two for his ninth career Heat win, and David Gravel claimed NOS Energy Drink Heat Three for his 214th career Heat win.
UNTIL NEXT TIME: The World of Outlaws NOS Energy Drink Sprint Cars heads to Indiana on Monday, May 29 for the Federated Auto Parts Memorial Day Spectacular at Lawrenceburg Speedway. For tickets, CLICK HERE.
If you can’t make it to the track, watch all the action on DIRTVision.
RESULTS:
NOS Energy Drink feature (35 laps): 1. 41-Carson Macedo[1]; 2. 2-David Grava[4]; 3. 15-Donny Schatz[3]; 4. 17-Sheldon Haudenschild[2]; 5. 18-Giovanni Scelzi[6]; 6. 71-Michael Kofoid[5]; 7. 83-James McFadden[11]; 8. 1S-Logan Schchart[9]; 9. 1A-Jacob Allen[8]; 10. 22-Cole Duncan[17]; 11. 49-Brad Sweet[7]; 12. 5-Spencer Bayston[15]; 13. 3Z-Brock Zearfoss[14]; 14. 9P-Parker Price Miller[19]; 15. 91-Cale Tomàs[12]; 16. 20G-Noah Gass[22]; 17. 101-Cody Maroske[18]; 18. 1-Nate Dussel[16]; 19. 4-Danny Smith[25]; 20. 81-Lee Jacobs[23]; 21. 7S-Robbie Price[20]; 22. 2S-Nathan Skaggs[21]; 23. A79-Brandon Wimmer[10]; 24. 83X-Nate Reeser[24]; 25. 99-Skylar Gee[13]
