Jonathan Davenport was not happy with Lucas Oil officials after he finished second in the Hillbilly 100 at Lernerville Speedway last night.
In his post-race interview with FloRacing, Davenport said, “Like [Ricky Thornton Jr.] said whoever got out front was going to to be really hard to beat. Up in the tower they’re so inconsistent with their calls on their cautions. There’s several different instances where the leaders are not to the flag stand, or the top three anyway, and they want to get that first lap in the heat races. They say they don’t make judgment calls, but it’s pretty much bulls**t.”
It’s unclear exactly what Davenport is referring to as there were no cautions in his heat race, which he easily won. However, it is possible he’s referring to the beginning of the feature. On the initial start Davenport was able to clear Ricky Thornton Jr. and take the lead going into turn 1. In fact, Thornton found himself in fourth behind Davenport, Hudson O’Neal, and Devin Moran. However, it would all be for naught as Joseph Joiner, Mike Marlar, Garrett Alberson, and Daniel Hilsabeck would spin in turn 4 before Davenport made it back to the flag stand.
With the caution coming out before anyone made it back to the flag stand or the scoring loop, the field would be reracked to its original start positions and this time Thornton had a much better restart and slid Davenport to take the lead coming out of turn 2.
Thornton credited the first yellow for allowing him to take control of the lead and bring home the win, “I’m glad that first yellow came out. I didn’t really get that great of a start and let JD get out in front of me. I felt like whoever got out front was going to be the one to beat. It didn’t matter if your car was better than theirs or not.”
With Ricky Thornton Jr. winning last night he extended his point lead over Davenport to 40 points. The battle for fourth also tightened up with Hudson O’Neal suffering some kind of mechanical issue and finishing in 16th while Brandon Sheppard finished 9th and Garrett Alberson finished 12th. Sheppard is now only 220 points behind O’Neal while Alberson sits 275 points him. Devin Moran distanced himself from all of them with a fourth place finish.
The series is back in action later this month for three nights at Knoxville for the Lucas Oil Late Model Knoxville Nationals on September 18th, 19th, and 20th. Following the conclusion of those three races, the top four in points will compete for the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series Champion in the final five races at Brownstown, Pittsburgh Pennsylvania Motor Speedway for the Pittsburgher and Eldora for the 45th Annual Dirt Track World Championship. The top four will be seeded based on the number of feature wins they earned throughout the season. Each feature wins earns them 10 points.
Of the top 6 in points, Ricky Thornton Jr. currently leads the way in wins with 13. Davenport is in second with 7, Moran is third with 6, and O’Neal is fourth with four. Brandon Sheppard and Garrett Alberson both have two wins on the season.
0 Comments