Brenden Smith shared his thoughts on fans accusing Jonathan Davenport of cherry-picking when he competes in non-national tour races.
During an appearance on the Mid America Dirt podcast, Smith discussed how difficult it is to win a Dirt Super Late Model race. He explained, “Think about the toughest thing you probably ever done in your life and probably double it. I can’t even express how perfect everything has to go to put yourself in a postition to even have a shot at winning one of these races. I don’t want to say it’s a lot of luck because you have to make your luck, I feel like. You have to put yourself in the right positions at the right times. I’m telling you, it’s a 100-lap feature, and you make a mistake on lap 50, that’s the difference between winning it and running 15th. It really is. It’s insane. Them guys that are winning these races on a weekly basis are so good and have done it for so long.
“And a lot of it is experience, I feel like,” he continued. “If you look at the guys that are racing and winning these races on a weekly basis, they’ve been doing this longer than I’ve even been racing total. I might have been racing go-karts whenever they ran their first year of Lucas. It is definitely tough.”
Brenden Smith. Photo by Event Horizon Photography.
From there, Smith shared his opinion that there is no such thing as cherry picking anymore, “Really, honestly, there’s not really anywhere anymore that you can go that’s easy. That you’re going to go, show up, and win. There’s always somebody that’s really good there.”
“There’s no such thing as cherry-picking, I feel like, anymore,” he asserted. “Everybody gets on Davenport for going to them races and saying he’s cherry-picking. But, you know, them guys that go there know what they’re doing just as much as he does. And they know what they got to do to get around those places. And usually they probably race there more than he has.”
Smith then shared his own personal example from a weekend trip to Paducah International Raceway and Windy Hollow Speedway where he finished 3rd and 5th.
“We just went and ran some regional races the week before last and we had to deal with Tanner English and Tyler Erb,” he said. “That’s not cherry-picking. Them guys are good. They know what they’re doing. They’ve been to those places. So yeah, it’s definitely tough.”
“It doesn’t really matter what you’re racing anymore in late models. If you’re crate racing, if you’re super racing, limited racing, anywhere you go there’s somebody there that you’re going to have to beat that night. It’s not going to be easy no matter where you go,” Smith concluded.
Davenport previously addressed his critics accusing him of cherry-picking by releasing cherry-picker themed merchandise. After he swept the Bad Boy 98 at Batesville Motor Speedway, Davenport posted to Facebook, “Been accused of it lately. Don’t care. We’re going to keep cashing big checks and racking up huge stacks.”
He then shared some new Cherry Picker t-shirts, “These brand-new Cherry Picker t-shirts are now available online at www.49apparel.com and will start shipping next week. Sorry to our fans here in Nebraska, but they are not on the souvenir trailer this weekend at Eagle Raceway.”
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