Davenport Wins $20K Spring Nationals Finale
Wheatland, MO (April 13, 2024) – Jonathan Davenport left no doubt on the opening weekend for the Lucas Oil MLRA, as he continued his dominance at the Lucas Oil Speedway in capturing Saturday nights 11th Annual MLRA “Spring Nationals” finale and its $20,000 payday.
Davenport capped a near perfect weekend for his Nutrien Ag Solutions Longhorn team, coming just shy of the weekend sweep of all events when Dustin Hodges topped Davenport and the rest of the 44-car field to score his first career My Race Pass overall “Fast Time Award” with a lap of 14.788 seconds.
The starting grid would find Hodges alongside of Davenport for the start of the sixty lap main event, with Davenport taking the early lead. The main event would go green for the first 25 circuits, with Davenport building up a lead of 4.801 seconds over Ricky Thornton Jr. and Mason Zeigler when the nights first caution waved on lap five as Chris Simpson stopped at the entrance of turn one.
The green would wave over the field once again for another ten-lap stretch, until a spin for Matt Johnson on lap thirty five placed the field under the nights second caution. Garrett Alberson was on the move leading up to the caution, as he moved his Roberts Motorsports entry from 13th on the grid inside the top three in third position.
The nights final caution waved just three laps later with 22 laps remaining as a multi car incident in turn three and four involving the likes of Trevor Gundaker, Hodges, Dillon McCowan, Cole Wells, & Dusty Leonard put the field under red. On the nights final re-start, the man on the move was 21st starting Mike Marlar who had now raced his way into fifth.
For the second night in a row, Davenport controlled the restart and quickly put over a one second margin between himself and Thornton Jr. Thornton made an effort to chase him down on the restart, but it was to no avail for the second consecutive night, as Davenport cruised to the win by 4.237 seconds over Thornton Jr. Thornton Jr. nipped Alberson at the line for second, while Marlar completed his night in fourth, collecting the “Swift Springs Move Of The Race”. Mason Zeigler completed the top five after finishing in third the night prior.
“We were so good in that heat race, we was afraid to change anything,” noted Davenport of his win in heat race # 3—a victory of nearly 5.5 seconds over Thornton Jr. “I feel like we over adjusted last night, so we did finally make some changes there at the very end, I don’t know if it was the right one, but it sure made it a lot easier to drive. I could maneuver very well and the car was just really good and I’m happy with it.”
For much of the race Davenport had to contend with lap traffic as his biggest threat for the victory. “I got into a pretty good rhythm there and the biggest thing I felt like won me the race was the lapped cars. I just tried not to get complacent and get behind one even if it was the wrong line. I tried to just keep my momentum up and try to pass them in the next corner. I knew those guys were right on me, Ricky has been really good, and Garrett was coming up through there, Mason was in and out of the top three there. I kept looking at the board, and ya the 157 keep crawling up the board, I was trying my best to put him a lap down there so he didn’t have a chance but congratulations to all those guys. We’ll definitely sleep good tonight,” he concluded.
Media Contact: Billy Rock
