Big Game Motorsports owner Tod Quiring shared more details on why he brought in Donny Schatz to run the World of Outlaws races in August.

After Schatz was let go by Tony Stewart Racing earlier this week, Quiring and Big Game Motorsports announced they had expanded their team to two cars and would have Schatz pilot the car for all of the World of Outlaws races in August beginning tonight at Ogilvie Raceway for the Big O Showdown. In a press release Quiring stated, “We’re excited to have Donny be a part of the team for the next two and a half weeks. Donny has produced a storied career with his 10 World of Outlaws championships and more than 300 World of Outlaws wins. He is also known as one of the cleanest race car drivers in the history of the sport and he does a tremendous job of taking care of equipment. All of that combined with the support from our crew and driver, David Gravel, made it an easy decision to create this second team while the World of Outlaws are racing close to our shop the rest of August.”

Now, in an interview with DirtVision, Quiring shared more details revealing the deal is “friends helping friends out a little bit here. And we have all the equipment, and, you know, I mean logistically the next seven races are very close to our shop and our guys, obviously, worked to put this together. But this is not going to be a distraction to our 2 car with David or anything like that. … This is Donny’s grassroots in this whole area. I own two of the racetracks that he grew up at and raced. The next actually three weeks is a big three weeks for him. He can race around all his family and friends and everything. It’s more of a, you know, we have good equipment, we have a lot of stuff, and it was fairly simple for us to put this together for these seven races.”

When asked how the deal came together, Quiring revealed that he wasn’t part of initial conversations and his team initially put it together, “I’m going to be brutally honest with you. My guys did it. I didn’t do it. Taylor and Cody [Jacobs]. Donny called me at noon yesterday, which would be Wednesday and I was in a meeting so I didn’t answer. I called him back Wednesday evening and I was talking to Donny and he said, ‘Tod, you don’t have to do this if you don’t want to.’ And I said, ‘Do what?’ And he said, ‘Put this car together for me.’ And I said, ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ And I didn’t.”

From there he shared that Jacobs and Taylor had informed they had put the deal together and already gotten Schatz a crew and knew they had the equipment and asked him to sign off on it.

Quiring also confirmed that Schatz will be running the same engine and chassis as Gravel, “It’s the same stuff that David [Gravel] has. We don’t have a bad engine. Some teams keep around an engine that’s bad. We don’t have a bad engine. Everything is going what the 2 car has. It’s just going to be the same stuff.  And it might not be what fits his style, and the guys will tweak on it a little bit, but we’re not going to go change a whole bunch of things just to race these seven races. He’s going to race what we have and just see how it goes. I know the engines, our engine package, they throttle well, they qualify well, they race well. That’s the big thing. Brian Morrison’s done a good job and we’ve worked with him since 2010 and he builds a great engine, a great racing engine. It’s got a lot of torque. And you don’t blow the tires off of it. … I think our engines are what Donny would like to try and so it’s more of a trial deal and helping a friend out.”

As far as the team and crew that will be working with Schatz, Quiring shared that Cody Jacobs, Brad Alexander, Stephen Hamm-Reilly, and Lannie Nichols are all part of the deal; however, he hasn’t spoken with them about who has what title. “I haven’t really asked the guys. … [Brad] just got here a few minutes ago and Brad came in. And Stephen Hamm-Reilly has worked for me. He was our car chief all last year. He’ll be on the car too. He flew in from Pennsylvania today. And then Lannie Nichols, who has worked with Donny for a long time on and off. Those three will be on the 15 car for the next seven races. Obviously, it’s our equipment and Cody will coach those guys and guide ’em and so forth, but, obviously, the primary focus will be on the 2 car. But Cody will oversee.”

“Honestly, we’re very organized. And I’m saying that Cody’s a very organized person. So this is not that difficult for us to do. Everything in our shop is ready to go other than bolting Donny’s seat in, putting the vinyl on, and that type of thing. So it’s not that difficult.”

As far as whether or not the deal might be extended after August, Quiring shared that he had not thought about it and it hasn’t been part of the conversation. However, he indicated it’s unlikely to happen, “Logistically, everything’s very close to our shop and we can get there logistically. Then the Outlaws go to California. So that’s just not feasible for more of the truck and trailers and stuff like that. It’s hard to throw together something quick like that.”

“I haven’t talked to Donny, but I’m at least guessing this gives him three and a half weeks to find something that he can finish out the year in,” he concluded. “There has been no conversation on that.”