Three-time Lucas Oil Dirt Late Model champion Jonathan Davenport survived an onslaught of sliders on the final restart and to complete a wire-to-wire victory in the main event of the Camping World SRX Series season finale on Thursday night at Lucas Oil Speedway in Wheatland, Mo., while Ryan Newman secured the summer short track series championship in the opening heat.
Davenport was joined on the podium by Brad Keselowski and Kenny Schrader but the driver that gave him the biggest challenge on the night was Clint Bowyer. Much of the 90-lap main event featured Davenport and Bowyer running nose-to-tail, three seconds ahead of the field, simply waiting for the figurative pay window to open before implementing the moves that would decide the race.
Bowyer made multiple attempts at the lead, one bump into Turn 1 on lap 74, and an epic slider into Turn 1 on a restart with 10 laps remaining. Contact between the No. 99 of Ernie Francis Jr. and the No. 6 of Keselowski set up Bowyer taking the bottom as opposed to the outside that he had chosen for much of the night. The slider was thrown in vain, though, as Davenport threw one right back and drove away to a multi-car lead.
“I really didn’t think he could slide all the way across there and get in front of me, but he did a good job not going out of the park and I just barely hit him enough to get him messed up, so I could get a run going back the other way,” related Davenport. “Then everybody was on his tail in (Turns) 3 and 4, so I don’t know if we were three- or four-wide coming off there, but it was definitely fun.
“I’m sure the fans enjoyed it. We’re out here to have fun — they don’t want nobody just ruining the show. We had a great car, the guys did an excellent job on it from the tore-up stuff they had last week. I figured a caution would come late but we were ready for it. This is something I’ll definitely remember for a long time; hopefully they’ll invite me back some time.”
