The attention given to the Evans. Ga., driver served as inspiration to more than a few competitors wanting to knock him from the top of the World.
“Hell yeah it did,” said Jonathan Davenport, who did exactly that with his fourth career World 100 victory and all since 2015. “Everybody was talking you might as well wreck him. I said, no I’m going to drive by him. That’s what we did. He’s done a hell of a job. My hat’s off to him.”
Davenport, from Blairsville, Ga., grabbed the lead off a restart on lap 55 of the 100-lap event. He maintained a comfortable lead as both he and Mike Marlar separated from the field. But that advantage evaporated with a late caution. A final restart set up an eight-lap dash to the finish to claim the $53,000 winner’s check. Davenport held off Tennessee’s Mike Marlar to win by 1.76 seconds.
“I had had a good shot on the restart,” Marlar said. “I actually had the lead a little bit off the straightaway, but Johnathan was a wee bit faster. He was the better car tonight.”
While Davenport started sixth in the field, Marlar started 26th for an impressive charge through the field.
Davenport, 37, joined Tennessee’s Scott Bloomquist and Ohio’s Donnie Moran (Dresden) as four-time champions. Arkansas’ Billy Moyer leads with six World 100 victories.
“Who knows? I never thought I’d get to four. We’ll just have to see. I feel like I got a few years left in me to try and do it,” Davenport said of ruling the World 100 with Moyer. “This is so hard to do. It just keeps getting tougher and tougher.
“It’s amazing to be up there with those names for sure. To just have one globe … to be able to stand on that stage in front of that huge crowd means the world to me.”
Bloomquist started on the pole and set a scorching pace early. He led the first 18 laps before he started getting shuffled back. The Tennessee driver pitted on lap 42 for a tire change but didn’t make it back out before the green, effectively ending his bid for another title. He finished 16th.
“This thing was awesome, I’ll tell you what,” Davenport said. “The only way I was going to lose was to screw it up myself, like I did Thursday. I thought we might’ve had the 51st, and I let that slip away. And then I thought, ‘Oh no,’ when (Bobby Pierce) caused a caution with eight to go again. ‘Son of a gun, not now.’”
Thursday’s running of the World 100 was labeled as the 51st, while Saturday’s feature was the 50th. The flipped features had to do with last year’s postponed race and the tickets, which had been sold for a Friday-Saturday event.
Overton finished third in Saturday’s feature and was followed by New York’s Tim McCreadie and North Carolina’s Chris Ferguson.
On Thursday, Overton held off fellow top-five finishers McCreadie, Georgia’s Dale McDowell, Indiana’s Hudson O’Neal and Davenport to claim the $54,000 feature win.
“Me and (my fiancée) Heather used to sit up there when I couldn’t even make the race,” Overton said. “She used to tell me, ‘Don’t worry about it, we’re going to get them one day.”
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