No Stopping Davenport In FloRacing Stop At Spoon River

Jonathan Davenport (right) after his win at Spoon River Speedway Wednesday night. (Kyle McFadden photo)

LEWISTOWN, Ill. – Jonathan Davenport led flag-to-flag to earn the win at Spoon River Speedway Wednesday night in the second round of the FloRacing Night in America season.

It marked his first victory at the three-eighths-mile dirt track, worth $20,000.

Davenport started second in the 50-lapper, took the lead in the first set of corners from Brian Shirley, and stayed there the whole race. Hudson O’Neal tried to challenge ‘Superman’ at a few points, but never had enough to get past the No. 49.

Davenport won the inaugural FloRacing Night in America championship in 2021, and the Spoon River win is the 41-year-old Georgian’s fifth with the series.

“I finally remembered what Jason [Feger] told me about this place,” Davenport said in victory lane. “He told me a little characteristic of this place when it gets slick. Once I got out front, that’s what I started doing on one end and it definitely helped, so thanks to him for that. Once we got rolling at the end and we were behind those three lapped cars, it was dirtying up the track just enough [that] I was getting a little nervous. I knew Hudson had softer left side tires on and he could putt around the [inside]. I tried to do it. I was just too tight, so I tried to stay in the middle of the racetrack.

“It’s been a long time since I’ve won in Illinois. I can’t even remember the last time it was. Awesome fans. Awesome place. First time I laid eyes on this place it was almost like my favorite place in the south, East Alabama Motor Speedway. A lot of characteristics [are] are the same, [but] the dirt is totally different. I still like these high-banked fast racetracks.”

Davenport finished fifth in Tuesday night’s season opener and carried that momentum into round two. The Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series is racing this weekend at Farmer City Speedway on Friday, May 9 and Fairbury Speedway on Saturday, May 10 to close out Illinois Speedweeks.

Davenport currently sits third in the points for the Lucas Oil tour.

“These are stellar fields,” Davenport said about running the FloRacing series in advance of the Lucas Oil races. “It’s like a World 100 field; I heard Bobby [Pierce] say that last night. These things are tough to even make, much less win. We [were] able to knock off a top five last night, which was better than I figured we were going to do.

“We brought out another car tonight. Just wanted to run this one for some future races coming up, and she was pretty good once we got the right parts on her.”

The toughness of the field Davenport mentioned is no joke, as last year’s FloRacing champion Ricky Thorton Jr. had to race in through a B-main and could only muster an 11th place finish.

LaSalle Speedway winner Pierce finished third behind Davenport and O’Neal. Once again, Pierce had a lackluster qualifying effort, but finished second in heat three and later worked his way through the feature field to get a solid finish.

Shirley started from the pole, but as mentioned was overtaken by Davenport on lap one. The only event of note was a caution with 18 laps to go for a slow Drake Troutman, who had to change a right-rear tire and cool an overheating motor.

O’Neal tried to pressure Davenport on the restart, but overheated his tires and was not able to mount a charge, letting ‘Superman’ score the win by 1.075 seconds.

Shirley faded to fourth behind Davenport, O’Neal, and Pierce, with Dennis Erb Jr. in fifth. Devin Moran, Ryan Unzicker, Shannon Babb, recent World of Outlaws late model winner Nick Hoffman, and Tanner English completed the top 10.

The next FloRacing Night in America event is Thursday at Lincoln Speedway, the third in a row for the mini-series and the midpoint in Illinois Dirt Late Model Speedweeks.

The action from Lincoln starts with hot laps live on FloRacing at 6:30 p.m. ET.

The finish:

A Feature (50 laps): 1. 49-Jonathan Davenport [2]; 2. 71-Hudson O'Neal [6]; 3. 32-Bobby Pierce [7]; 4. 3S-Brian Shirley [1]; 5. 28-Dennis Erb Jr. [10]; 6. 99-Devin Moran [8]; 7. 24-Ryan Unzicker [13]; 8. 18-Shannon Babb [5]; 9. 9H-Nick Hoffman [9]; 10. 96-Tanner English [19]; 11. 20RT-Ricky Thornton Jr. [18]; 12. 93-Carson Ferguson [17]; 13. 19R-Ryan Gustin [11]; 14. 2-Cody Overton [4]; 15. 18D-Daulton Wilson [15]; 16. 89-Mike Spatola [22]; 17. 1-Brandon Sheppard [12]; 18. 22*-Drake Troutman [24]; 19. 25-Jason Feger [21]; 20. 157-Mike Marlar [14]; 21. 15-Clay Stuckey [23]; 22. 58-Garrett Alberson [16]; 23. 40B-Kyle Bronson [3]; 24. 32S-Chris Simpson [20].