BUFFALO TWP— A three-hour rain delay, followed by a day's postponement — all for 11 minutes.

And Donny Schatz made use of every one of them.

The World of Outlaws Sprint division points leader grabbed the lead from pole-sitter Craig Dollansky off the fourth turn on Lap 8 and pulled away from the field to win the quickest Don Martin Memorial Silver Cup race in history Wednesday night at Lernerville Speedway.

The 40-lap feature ran from start to finish with no cautions.

"I was surprised we were able to race non-stop like that,"Schatz said. "But this is an awesome car."

The win was Schatz's 11th of the season on the Outlaws tour. He sits at the top in that department as well.

Schatz also could be entering another tax bracket. He has pocketed $80,000 in his last two victories, winning the $50,000 prize at the Kings Royal and the $30,000 check that goes to the Silver Cup champion.

"The Kings Royal victory had my team pumped up coming in here and it has me pumped up,"Schatz said. "This is an awesome time of year to have everything jiving."

Lapped cars proved no problem for the 10-year Outlaws veteran as he maneuvered through the field with ease, putting distance between himself and Dollansky, as well as third-place finisher Daryn Pittman.

Dollansky and Pittman exchanged positions a couple of times before the former reached the finish line first.

"We were racing hard for second,"Dollansky said. "It took me a while to find my place on the racetrack. Once I did, we were pretty good over the latter half of the race.

"Even if we had gotten a couple of restarts ... Donny and his guys are so good right now. I don't know if we could have taken him. I doubt it."

Schatz's win was his third Outlaws triumph at Lernerville. He also won last year's Silver Cup race and found victory lane here in 2003.

He received the winner's check Wednesday despite finishing only 23rd in time trials.

"I totally screwed that up,"Schatz said. "You have to pound the cushion at that point and I was cutting the curves.

"Because of me, we dug ourselves a hole. But we climbed out of it."

Schatz rallied from the sixth starting position to finish second in his heat race. He then finished second in the Fast Dash and wound up starting on the front row alongside Dollansky.

"It was nice earning the pole, but it would have helped a lot more if (Schatz) started a little deeper in the field,"Dollansky said.

Dollansky earned his fourth pole start of the season, but has picked up only one Outlaws feature win on the campaign.

Bad luck kept two area drivers — all-time Lernerville Sprint victory leader Ed Lynch Jr. and Brian Ellenberger of Butler — out of the feature.

Lynch had the second-fastest qualifying time and was the only area driver to qualify for the Silver Cup race through the heats. A rod broke in his engine during the Fast Dash, however, prematurely ending his evening.

"I just rode the car to the finish line and that was it,"Lynch said. "There was no time to get it fixed.

"We were OK (speed-wise). Our qualifying time got us in the dash. It gave us a shot."

Ellenberger never got his shot at the feature. Battling for the fifth and final transfer spot in the third heat race, he saw Sam Hafertepe Jr. spin out right in front of him coming off Turn 2.

Ellenberger's No. 20Ecar came into Hafertepe, sending the No. 15Htumbling over. Ellenberger's car was pushed into the pits, but he returned to the track and came from the back of the field to finish sixth.

"It's disappointing,"he said. "I really wanted to be in this show and we had the car to do it.

"Sam and Chad (Kemenah) were jockeying for position and I was right there. Without that wreck, I know I could have finished fifth, maybe even fourth, and gotten in. It was nobody's fault."

Ellenberger wound up 10th in the B-Main, ending his night. The top four cars from that race gained entry to the Silver Cup.

Notes:There were 46 cars in the pits, representing 15 different states and Australia. ... Kevin Schaeffer and Carl Bowser used Lernerville provisionals to enter the 28-car Silver Cup field, but both pitted after five laps. ... Paul McMahan turned the fastest lap in time trials at 12.953 seconds, or 125.068 mph.