Jonathan Davenport
People who rest on their laurels rarely improve. And that includes Dirt Late Model teams and drivers who had already won 15 feature races coming into this mid-June weekend. So with that being the case, Jonathan Davenport and his Lance Landers-owned Double L Motorsports team opted to debut a brand new Longhorn Chassis for this weekend’s Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series-sanctioned ‘Clash at the Mag’ three-day affair at the Magnolia Motor Speedway in Columbus, Mississippi.
The results with the new car were immediately positive. Davenport outran the field to the finish line on Thursday night to claim a $5,000 victory. That race will serve as one of the two events(the other on Friday night) used to help set the starting lineup for Saturday night’s $15,000-to-win weekend finale.
“I’ve got to thank my guys first and foremost on this win here,” Davenport said in his victory lane interview with MavTV Plus. “We left Eldora and the guys went back to Longhorn and Matt(Langston) had this thing probably 60 to 70% ready for us and my guys finished it up this week. This is a brand new car so thanks to Matt and everybody at Longhorn. It’s a pretty good piece. We’ve just got to tune on it a little bit.”
The 37-year-old driver from Blairsville, GA entered the weekend third in the LOLMDS standings. The Thursday and Friday preliminary events do not pay points toward the championship but Davenport was happy to win against the always tough competition on this series. He also pointed out that he and his team got a little helpful advice from a fellow Longhorn driver in the process.
“Me and (Tim)McCreadie was talking before the feature and he was discussing some of the stuff he was doing for the end of the year so that really helped us out,” Davenport explained. “Thanks to him and it was a good run for him and it’s good to be back here on the stage with the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series. Anytime you can get a win with these guys it’s awesome.”
McCreadie finished third in the Thursday feature.
Jonathan Davenport won on Thursday at Magnolia with a brand new Longhorn Chassis
Ultimately, the three-time Lucas Oil champion says that much of his 2021 success, including that with this newest car, is due to the North Carolina-based chassis builder.
“This is a testament to Longhorn. They’ve been building some really good cars and I’m just going in with an open mind and thinking it’s going to do everything I want it to. And so far it has.”
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