EAGLE, Neb. — Jonathan Davenport took the lead at the start of the 40-lap main event, leading wire-to-wire on Friday night at Eagle Raceway.
He won night two of the Malvern Bank High Bank Heist, worth $10,000, marking his 87th career Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series presented by FloRacing victory.
Davenport, who finished second on Thursday night to winner Ricky Thornton Jr., had three drivers challenge him. Polesitter and Nebraska native Tad Pospisil, Kyle Bronson and Hudson O’Neal all occupied the second spot at various points during the race, but none were able to take the lead from Davenport.
Davenport, who started alongside Pospisil, took the lead at the outset, with Pospisil falling into second place.
Pospisil, who was seeking his first career Series win, stayed with Davenport through traffic until Bronson made a charge for second, passing Pospisil on lap 14.
Bronson and points leader Ricky Thornton, Jr. then put on a clinic of slide jobs for second as the two battled back and forth for several laps until Thornton collided with the frontstretch wall on lap 22, ending his night.
Bronson maintained second place until a caution for Pospisil in turn four, with 37 laps complete, set up a three-lap dash to the finish. Davenport managed to retain his lead until the end, but O’Neal was able to sneak underneath Bronson on lap 39 to claim the runner-up spot at the finish.
Bronson rounded out the podium. Brandon Sheppard finished fourth, with Garrett Alberson coming home in fifth.
“I am kind of glad that one caution came out there, it gave me a breather,” Davenport reported. “The car was good in the middle at the end of the race. The first part of the race, we were just super tight up there on the lip, and I’m sure everybody was. We really weren’t expecting that. The bottom didn’t come in, I don’t think like it did last night, there for a while. I didn’t really go down there except for a couple of times. I was just kind of married myself to the top there and tried to hang on.”
In his last three Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series starts, Davenport has two wins and a runner-up finish.
“It’s about confidence, really, in all of us. We are all just riding up and down the road in the truck and having a good time, everybody’s getting along, everybody’s doing their job and having fun doing it.”
O’Neal came on toward the end of the race, and a caution with three laps to go allowed him to not only challenge Bronson, but also Davenport for the win.
“I kept trying the bottom down there in one and two, that was the only way I was going to have a shot at him (Davenport),” O’Neal said. “I had a little line figured out there in three, and maybe I could get close to him and run off in there and slide him. I just couldn’t get there on him, but we’re happy to come away with a second after we backed up pretty well last night. We were scratching our heads a little bit last night. We thought we were going to be in a good spot, but just kept backing up, and we just didn’t have anything for them last night. We’re so happy we were able to rebound a little bit tonight, so it makes us feel better going into tomorrow.”
Bronson backed up a third-place run on Thursday night with another podium performance Friday.
“I felt like that last caution there kind of killed me. I was just about to slide Hudson back there, and he was playing a really smart race, and he was really good through that middle, but I felt like I had a second-place car. I need to be up on the wheel more here. My guys have been busting their butts, and we are headed back in the right direction.”
The finish:
Jonathan Davenport, Hudson O’Neal, Kyle Bronson, Brandon Sheppard, Garrett Alberson, Tyler Bruening, Tyler Erb, Brandon Overton, Carson Ferguson, Donald McIntosh, Dillon McCowan, Chase Junghans, Dan Ebert, Devin Moran,
Daniel Hilsabeck, Tad Pospisil, Daulton Wilson, collen Winebarger, Cory Lawler, Spencer Hughes, Clay Harris, Ricky Thornton Jr., Sam Mars, Ian Whisler.
