IMPERIAL, Pa. — Jonathan Davenport repeated his performance from a year ago by leading all 70 laps to win the 37th annual Pittsburgher Saturday night at Pittsburgh’s Pennsylvania Motor Speedway, earning $50,000.
Davenport started third on the grid, and by the end of the first lap, he was out front. Max Blair earned the Hoker Trucking Hard Charger of the Race after moving from 13th to finish second.
Devin Moran finished third, taking a 15-point lead in the championship standings into the season finale at Eldora Speedway in two weeks.
Ricky Thornton Jr finished fourth, with Brandon Sheppard rounding out the top five drivers.
In Lucas Oil Victory Lane for the 92nd time in his career, the Blairsville, Georgia driver heads to Eldora in two weeks, third in the championship points, as he looks to try and win his first career Dirt Track World Championship.
“It’s definitely really hard to lead here; the track is so wide. There are a lot of options and different lanes to choose from,” Davenport said. “I had to judge off of lapped cars – once I got behind them, I was just trying to maintain my momentum until I reached them. Our car felt pretty good; I was just trying to manage my tires during the first 40 or 50 laps so I’d have something left at the end.
“We weren’t that good yesterday and really couldn’t understand why, so we second-guessed ourselves. We put our heads together, talked about it, thought it through, and came up with a game plan for today.”
Blair, who finished third in the Friday Night program, charged through the field to secure second place on lap 61 and earned $20,000 for his runner-up finish in the Centerline Motorsports entry.
“Well, the first thing I thought of was Lernerville. I thought I was going to finish second to him (Davenport), but we ended up finishing third, and there’s a really big pay difference between second and third,” Blair said. “So, I really didn’t want to give away second. I mean, he was better than everybody else. I ran him down in the last couple of laps, but I think that was just more of him not wanting to get into lapped traffic.
“I’m sure his crew was telling him he was okay. I think he kind of had everybody covered. But to come here and run second against these guys is pretty awesome, for sure.”
Moran moved past Thornton after a late restart to secure third place as he leaves Pittsburgh 15 points ahead of Thornton.
“I really think that when we got to lapped traffic, Brandon Overton showed me the top line, and my car was so bad off the top that I had to commit to it. At the same time, I had to be careful not to get flats like Brandon did tonight or Ricky did last night. It’s definitely a fine line between going really hard and causing problems. I’m just glad we salvaged that race; we were struggling badly early on, but we managed to find the high line. Pittsburgh did an awesome job with the track all weekend long.”
The finish:
Jonathan Davenport, Max Blair, Devin Moran, Ricky Thornton Jr., Brandon Sheppard, Carson Ferguson, Garrett Alberson, Mason Zeigler, Josh Richards, Josh Richards, Brandon Overton, Donald McIntosh, Matt Cosner, Gregg Satterlee, Rick Eckert, Clay Harris, Daniel Hilsabeck, Dan Ebert, Joseph Joiner, Cory Lawler, Daulton Wilson, Hudson O’Neal, Logan Zarin, Ryan Montgomery, Ross Robinson.
