A part of Jonathan Davenport felt that Saturday’s Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series feature at Fairbury Speedway had been too tame. Too uneventful. And not necessarily too easy, but his five-second lead wasn’t shrinking.

“I was hoping it was (going to stay green) because (crew chief) Cory (Fosvedt) was showing me a straightaway lead,” said the 41-year-old Davenport, who ended up leading the final 44 laps of the 60-lap race. “I just felt comfortable making laps, judging myself off of lapped cars. Just trying to hit my marks and be smooth. But I figured something would happen before it’s over.” | RaceWire

Caution-free contests and runaway victories just isn’t Fairbury’s reputation. So with 11 laps to go in the FALS Spring Shootout, the quarter-mile oval turned Davenport’s breezy outing into a frenzied showdown. Four cautions fragmented the final 10 laps to an apprehensive pace for Davenport, who noticed a challenger emerging as he “kept watching the (score)board.”

“I seen the 1 (of Brandon Sheppard) get to third, then I seen the 1 get to second,” Davenport said. “I’m like, ‘Well, I know pretty much where he’s probably gonna be.’”

Even though the Blairsville, Ga., superstar hadn’t been in position to win at Fairbury since his 2015 Prairie Dirt Classic victory, he knew exactly how to seal the deal in a three-lap shootout versus Sheppard, the bullring expert, at the quarter-mile.

When Sheppard pulled the trigger on a slider through turns three and four to narrowly pull ahead heading toward the white flag, Davenport didn’t panic.

“No, I didn’t think I lost it, but I knew it was going to be more difficult,” Davenport said. “I had to just be smart and get as much momentum going back again off the wall. I didn’t really know, once we made contact on the front straightaway, if he was going to try and turn under me or go back to the cushion” barreling into turns one and two on the final lap.

Sheppard ended up gunning it around the top of both corners on the final lap, but couldn’t squeeze his way around Davenport like he did briefly as they took the white flag.

A finely executed pair of corners where Davenport rode the middle of the first corner and then the top exiting the final turn is what snuffed out Sheppard’s last-ditch bid at stealing $30,000.

“I tried to block both of them,” Davenport said in turning back Sheppard’s options at either crossing him over or generating momentum around the top in turns one and two. “And then go in the other end and play defense once again, slide myself and know I could get to the cushion fast enough that he couldn’t cut the corner fast enough and block me.

“Yeah, just trying to be smart about it. Think every scenario through in my mind really fast. It worked out for us.”

The lap-49 caution for Donald McIntosh was a welcomed stoppage for Davenport, who “didn’t mind the first restart because I felt like I got going there pretty good.”

“It was double-file, so it would force somebody to the outside, but I think (Shannon) Babb was third (at the time), and I know he had (softer) left-side 2s on (his tires),” Davenport said. “I didn’t think he would be that good around the top, and that let me get away. Once they started having other cautions single-file, that just kept giving people opportunities to try new things.

“Obviously it let Brandon get up through there and he got to railing the top, almost get me there in the last couple laps.”

At Fairbury, double-file restarts as the leader in the closing laps are easier to manage than tricky lapped traffic, according to Davenport, who of course instead wished his five-second lead held on down the stretch.

“Sometimes, if you’re the leader, a double-file restart is pretty good because the guy behind you can’t fan all the way out or the bottom guy is forced to run the bottom, the top guy is forced to run the top, or the bottom guy slides the other guy to keep him behind,” Davenport added. “Those two have to get position before they get position on you. Normally, a double file restart helps the leader.”

So when the cautions kept adding up, which led to more single-file restarts in the closing laps, Davenport knew that created more room for Sheppard, and even eventual third-finishing Bobby Pierce, to make moves to get to the very front.

But just as he did the first 49 laps, Davenport didn’t feel pressured to blaze his race car around the cushion like Sheppard or Pierce. Sixth-starting Davenport got the lead from pole-starting Brandon Overton in traffic on lap 17 because he exploited the middle of the racetrack, the same game plan he used Wednesday in his victory at Spoon River Speedway in Banner, Ill., for his first triumph in Illinois in nearly a decade.

Davenport, who’s excelled at running the middle of the racetrack his whole career, noticed that his wheelhouse groove had been more prevalent at the Fairbury quarter-mile Saturday as opposed to previous trips. The reason for that is because “I feel like there’s a little less banking,” which neutralized some of the top groove’s effectiveness.

“But I felt that’s what it was last year. They put different dirt on it and it seemed to be OK. It didn’t rubber up last year. It was a little different, but it raced really good,” Davenport said. “It got really slick.”

What played into Davenport’s favor all the more was how Fairbury officials prepped the racing surface before the main event.

“The cushion was all the way, all the way, to the wall when we started and it didn’t build any more,” Davenport said. “They didn’t tear the track up enough (during prerace track prep) where it’d build up more of a lip than what it already had. That definitely played in my favor.”

Davenport got from sixth to fourth on the opening lap, then from fourth to third by lap eight, and from third to second by lap 11. In six laps, he erased Overton’s 1.2-second lead, which didn’t seem to stand much of a chance once Overton reached the tail end of the field on lap 12.

Once Davenport closed all the way up to Overton on lap 14, it only took two laps for him to complete the go-ahead pass.

“Once we got going, once I felt I passed a couple cars around the bottom, I passed cars around the cushion, and three and four I could run the middle better than one and two,” Davenport said. “The wall seems to be a little straighter right in the middle of one and two, and so you really tear your quarter panel up there.

“I tried to be smart about that and have as much tire and body left as I could at the end. I knew it would slow down eventually. I didn’t know if it would take rubber, but I knew it would get slicker where we’d pull down to the middle or the bottom.”

Davenport wouldn’t have expected he’d be the only multi-time winner during Illinois Speedweek, which isn’t a knock on his Double L Motorsports team. If there was any driver that’d accomplish the feat, it’d be Bobby Pierce, Tuesday’s winner at La Salle Speedway, or Ricky Thornton Jr., Friday’s winner at Farmer City Raceway.

But as Davenport iterated after Wednesday’s victory at Spoon River, he feels a growing confidence in his team and that they’re just starting to hit their stride. His six overall victories after the second weekend of May are his most wins to start a season since 2021 when he picked up his sixth win on April 15.

During his monstrous 2022 season, his sixth win didn’t come until June 9’s Eldora Million prelim victory at Eldora Speedway in Rossburg, Ohio. In 2023, his sixth win didn’t come until May 25’s Show-Me 100 prelim victory at Lucas Oil Speedway in Wheatland, Mo., and last year, the sixth win didn’t come until June 8’s Dream triumph at Eldora.

Davenport senses that his Double L team might even have another level within them they’ve yet to reach.

“I knew our car has been really good. And that’s our goal is to come out here and win races,” Davenport said. “Some of these races, I probably would’ve expected to run better than I did and worse than I did. I figured I would run better at Farmer City than I did here. But then obviously we had Spoon circled because that’s more of my cup of tea: big, high-banked, fast place, places I like.

“We was OK at the other places, just failed to qualify where we needed to. We would move forward in those races, and some we’d qualify good, then move back.”

Davenport’s alluding to his seventh-place finish Friday at Farmer City where he lost three spots from the fourth starting position at the quarter-mile oval, and then his non-factor 13th-place finish Thursday at Lincoln Speedway, a night he buried himself in qualifying (12th of 21 cars in his group) and in the feature (started 18th).

All in all, when factoring in his 11th-to-fifth charge in Tuesday’s opening at La Salle Speedway, Davenport’s two-victory, three-top-five week during Illinois Speedweek was a highly successful one.

“This sport’s so difficult. I could come back with this same setup at the PDC and not even make the race,” Davenport said. “There’s a lot of stipulations that go on, pill draw and where you line up in the heat, heat race (competition), all things that can change your night. Tonight it all worked in our favor.”