Jonathan Davenport
The Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series is about to embark on a big weekend of racing as the national touring series will make its way to the Tazewell(TN) Speedway on Friday night and then on to Kentucky’s Florence Speedway for a Saturday evening show. Jonathan Davenport will enter this year’s Tazewell event as the defending race winner. And more, during the Blairsville, GA native’s incredible record breaking run of 2015 he swept both of these features.
Each of this weekend’s events will pay $12,000 to the winner.
Davenport appears to be in the process of piecing together another amazing season. The defending LOLMDS champion will come into Tazewell with a lead of 405 points over Tyler Erb and 425 markers over Earl Pearson, Jr. in the series standings. The driver of the No. 49 Lance Landers-owned Longhorn Chassis has built that big lead in the standings on the strength of six points-paying Lucas Oil wins and a season opening streak that saw him place in the top-5 in every race that counted toward the LOLMDS championship until the contest held at Smoky Mountain Speedway in Maryville, TN on June 15th.
“We’ve just got a good, balanced race car and a crew that keeps it up,” Davenport explained during an interview with InsideDirtRacing.com. “We haven’t had any failures and we’ve got a really big window to work in. It’s been an awesome year for us and we’re going off our notebook from last year, both the dos and the don’ts. So we have something to build off of. Our Longhorn car has been really good and our Cornett motors have been driving excellent.”
Davenport points out that this season’s success is due to factors associated with when his car first arrives at the race track. The work that takes place in the shop during the week is what most often leads to a successful weekend at the track.
“If we can unload pretty close every night when we take it off the trailer and we’re in the top-three or four of our hot lap group then we don’t have to make big swings,” the driver said. “We aren’t running around and making last minute decisions that don’t make sense when you go back and think about it. It gives us time to really think about what we do and make good decisions.”
And that preparation has paid off early in the evening at many of the races entered so far in 2019.
“We’ve been qualifying really good,” Davenport explained. “That’s been a big plus because it puts us up front in the heat race and we’ve parlayed that into heat race wins and starting up front. We don’t have to put ourselves in bad circumstances as much as when you have to start in the back.”
Jonathan Davenport’s Cornett powered Longhorn Chassis
Davenport is one of the top racers when it comes to starts and restarts, which is obviously important when it comes to finishing well in 10-lap preliminaries. So where did the ability to get the jump on the competition at the drop of the green flag come from?
“I think some of it’s luck, just being in the right line,” he declared. “I think it comes from a lot of Crate racing because those motors are so evenly prepared that every little advantage that you can figure out helps you even more and that shows up in these supers. But it’s just knowing how to set your car up to do different things on restarts and things like that. It’s just a different combination of stuff.”
Another factor that has come into play in terms of making Davenport one of the sport’s top stars is the development he has shown over the course of his career. The driver who once was known for being a hard charger around every turn has learned that there are times when that style may not serve him best.
“I learn almost every lap when I’m on the race track. A lot of that is in knowing how to prepare the car for the longer races and having a better car under me. I know that sometimes when I know I have a better car than the guy in front of me I don’t have to push the issue to pass him. But if I don’t have a good race car I’ve got to try harder than everybody else.”
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