Jonathan Davenport cruised to victory on Monday night at the Wythe Raceway.
As is always the case, the Schaeffer’s Oil Southern Nationals presented by Old Man’s Garage kicked off their ten race campaign at Fred Brown’s Wythe Raceway in Rural Retreat, VA on Monday evening and it was Georgia’s Jonathan Davenport who scored the opening round victory.
Davenport came into the night as the defending champion of the series. He collected $3,500 after leading all 35 laps to score the victory.
The night began with Dennis ‘Rambo’ Franklin setting fast time in Group 1 qualifying and overall with a time of 16.185 seconds around the big, high-banked oval. Jonathan Davenport led Group 2 time-trials with a lap of 16.199 seconds.
Those two drivers would be joined by the respective second best qualifiers from each group, Ty Dillon and Stacy Boles, in a dash race that would set the first two rows in the feature starting lineup.
Davenport earned the pole for the main event by winning the dash preliminary over Boles, Franklin and Dillon.
Eric Jacobsen passed Vic Hill on the last lap of B-main 1 to win what had been a lead swapping affair between Hill and Chris Madden.
Tony Knowles took the early lead in B-main 2 and drove away for the win ahead of Pierce McCarter and NASCAR Camping World Truck Series star Joey Coulter.
At the start of the feature, the pole sitting Davenport bolted to the early lead with Franklin, Boles and Dillon trailing behind. With just three circuits in the books, Davenport and Franklin looked as if they would separate from the pack and make this a two car race. All the while, there was some intense racing behind the lead duo as several cars found themselves bunched together from the third position back.
The action was slowed on lap 7 when the first caution flag of the night waved for Ty Dillon’s flat right rear tire. The NASCAR Nationwide Series star would be forced to restart the race from the tail of the field after a visit to the pit area.
Once the green flag waved again, defending race winner Chris Madden continued his climb toward the front as he took the 3rd spot away from Boles. Madden, who began the race in the 9th starting position, was making his first start after having missed several weeks of action due to health issues.
Davenport once again pulled away to a comfortable margin with Franklin following behind by several car lengths. Cautions on laps 11 and 19 allowed the field to keep the leader in sight briefly. But after every restart, the No. 6 car would reassume command of the event.
The final yellow flag waved on lap 27, giving the competition one last shot at the front runner. But the real racing on that restart proved to be a bit further back as Coulter, Dillon, Billy Ogle, Jr. and Donald McIntosh found themselves four wide on at least one occasion and two and three wide several times over the course of the closing laps.
At the finish, it was Jonathan Davenport claiming the win ahead of Dennis Franklin, Chris Madden, Stacy Boles, Vic Hill, Tony Knowles, Eric Jacobsen, Billy Ogle, Jr., Donald McIntosh, Ty Dillon, Austin Smith and Joey Coulter.
The Southern Nationals will move to the 411 Motor Speedway in Seymour, TN for round 2 on Tuesday night, July 22.
