ROSSBURG, Ohio — It’s been seven years since someone not named Jonathan Davenport or Brandon Overton won the Dirt Late Model Dream, and Friday was a prime example of why that’s the case.
In the second of two preliminary nights for the Eldora Speedway crown jewel, the two titans of the “Big E” were at the front of the field by the end once again, with Davenport emerging victorious for the eighth time in Dream prelim competition.
The result puts the Blairsville, Ga., driver in an ideal position going into Saturday’s $100,000-to-win program, which he’ll be trying to win for a record-breaking fourth time in a row.
Before Davenport or Overton got their time out front, it was Illinois star Jason Feger spending time in the lead early in the race. The reigning champion of the MARS Late Model Championship, DIRTcar Summer Nationals and the DIRTcar Late Model national points broke away from polesitter Mason Zeigler on the top side.
While Feger pulled away, Zeigler started to drop through the field until his night came to an end in catastrophic fashion. He got turned around after contact with Nick Hoffman exiting Turn 4, then ramped off the nose of Brandon Sheppard’s car and barrel rolled down the frontstretch. Zeigler climbed from the machine unhurt.
On the ensuing restart, Overton ripped around the top of Turns 1 and 2 to bring Feger’s time out front to a close. The next car to challenge Feger was Davenport, but the Bloomington, Ill., native gave “Superman” everything he could handle.
Davenport needed several laps to get by Feger initially, and as soon as he did, he tagged the wall in Turn 1 to let Feger get back around. Davenport went back to work and overtook Feger for a second time, but by that point, he only had eight laps left to run down Overton at the front.
Luckily for Davenport, his 1.9-second gap to Overton was erased with five to go when the caution flew for a slowing Brenden Smith. One Turn 1 slide job later, Davenport was in command, and he heldd on for five more circuits to take the checkered flag.
“I thought I had something for [Overton] there in lap traffic,” Davenport said. “Got by Feger, I found me a really good rhythm there and I stuffed it in the fence there. I don’t think I hit the right-front too hard, I don’t know. My steering wheel moved just a little bit, not much. Hopefully it wasn’t too bad. I don’t know if that’s when I knocked my spoiler in or whatever, but it definitely wasn’t as good after that. I couldn’t really go through the middle down in [Turns] 3 and 4 like I needed to.
“I was kind of licking my chops when [Overton] kept picking the outside. I said, ‘if I can ever get there and he picks the outside, I might can get enough.’ There’s just a little bit of brown right in the middle of the straightaway about at the flag stand where you can go all the way to the floorboard, where I don’t think you could if you were out in the slick. [Overton] tried to squeeze down just a little bit so he could catch that too. I don’t know, I saw him at the last second. I was either going to stick it right in his door, I think, if I lifted or hit the brakes. I just tried to drive straight right across him.”
Overton settled for second ahead of Dale McDowell in third, Feger in fourth and Hoffman in fifth.
The finish:
Feature (50 Laps): 1. 49D-Jonathan Davenport[6]; 2. 76-Brandon Overton[4]; 3. 17M-Dale McDowell[3]; 4. 25F-Jason Feger[2]; 5. 9-Nick Hoffman[9]; 6. 12W-Ashton Winger[8]; 7. 14JR-Trey Mills[17]; 8. 111-Max Blair[7]; 9. 1-Brandon Sheppard[11]; 10. 19R-Ryan Gustin[20]; 11. 22*-Drake Troutman[21]; 12. 3S-Brian Shirley[18]; 13. 58V-Daulton Wilson[14]; 14. 157-Mike Marlar[10]; 15. 57-Zack Mitchell[5]; 16. 20TC-Tristan Chamberlain[13]; 17. 8-Kyle Strickler[12]; 18. 17SS-Brenden Smith[25]; 19. 18J-Chase Junghans[23]; 20. 10J-Joseph Joiner[15]; 21. T1-Todd Morrow[16]; 22. 12M-Ryan Montgomery[26]; 23. 12-Jason Jameson[19]; 24. 45-Kyle Hammer[24]; 25. 25Z-Mason Zeigler[1]; 26. 88-Trent Ivey[22]
