Can it be? Was Jonathan Davenport’s first-ever crown jewel victory — that unforgettable moment in Dirt Late Model history when he inherited the $100,000 Dream prize because apparent winner Scott Bloomquist weighed in light at Eldora Speedway in Rossburg, Ohio — really a full decade ago in 2015?

So much has happened since then for Davenport, who over the 10-year span blossomed from a shaggy-haired, 31-year-old prospect into his current status as a bona fide superstar with a legendary performance record at Eldora in particular.

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My, oh my, how quickly the pages of the calendar flip when a driver’s setting new standards.

“Yeah, it’s been a while,” Davenport said when asked about celebrating the 10th anniversary of his milestone triumph with the running of this weekend’s Dream XXXI. “It’s crazy that it has been that long. It don’t feel that long, but when you really get thinking about it, that’s a long time ago.”

Davenport likes to say it’s difficult for him to gauge the passage of time because “we never feel like our season ends so we never reset,” but he will also concede that the 2015 Dream forever stands out — and seems almost like it occurred yesterday — because it truly did change his life. He was already known as a very talented race car driver and had national touring series wins on his resume, but he had yet to break through in a major, long-distance event and, in fact, was at a crossroads in his racing.

Indeed, before Davenport experienced the emotional roller coaster of absorbing an apparent late-race loss to Bloomquist and then ascending to Eldora’s vaunted winner’s stage by disqualification, he wasn’t 100 percent committed to continuing as a full-time driver. He was the father of a 2-year-old boy, Blaine, with his soon-to-be wife Rachel, and he began 2015 planning to go to work at Rachel’s father’s metal-building business for a steady paycheck while racing a limited number of events with the K&L Rumley Enterprises No. 6 team.

“In ’15 we had moved in with Rachel's mom and dad (in Williamston, S.C.),” said Davenport, native of Blairsville, Ga. “I was going to start helping her dad, and I was going to slow down and not race as much with Kevin and Lee Roy (Rumley) because they didn’t race, but, you know, 25, 30 times a year … that was a big schedule for them.

“But we messed up and went to East Bay (Raceway Park in Gibsonton, Fla.) and ran good (in February’s Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series Winternationals), and so then we just kind of would go week-by-week to the Lucas deal because we was, I don’t know, first in points or way up in the points.”

And as Davenport picked up momentum with the Rumleys, they kept running the Lucas Oil Series despite not really being equipped for a national tour. It was a modest, seat-of-the-pants effort, but the victories started coming and, when they reached Dream-level payoff, J.D. began to realize he shouldn’t take a non-racing job just yet.

“I never really did end up working full-time (for Rachel’s father),” Davenport said. “I remember at one point there when we had won a lot, I remember still kind of doing a little bit there, and I’m, like, almost adding up the hours and what I was making at the racetrack, and it’s like, ‘Damn, what am I doing here?’ And I was missing more work than what I was doing, so it just worked out that it was better for me to just go ahead and let them continue on what they was doing and me continue on what I was doing (with racing).”

The $100,000 Dream victory “was probably one of the wins that kind of, you know, closed the deal, anyway, so to speak, for me to go back at racing full time,” Davenport continued. “I didn’t know if we could ever maintain that over the years, but we’ve been doing a pretty good job so far.”

Davenport’s Dream triumph was a springboard to one of the most spectacular seasons in Dirt Late Model history, one that included four more crown jewel triumphs (Show-Me 100, USA Nationals, North-South 100, World 100) and the Lucas Oil Series championship. And now, at 41, he’s already accumulated a Hall of Fame resume, including two more Lucas Oil titles and a total of 10 major victories at Eldora (five World 100s, three Dreams, the Eldora Million and the Covid-year Intercontinental Classic invitational).

“That was definitely a turning point in my career,” Davenport said of his Dream breakthrough. “I always say it’s hard to get the first one, and then after that it gets a little easier, but, yeah, for sure, it was big. Not really the way I wanted to win it, but there’s also some circumstances that, if they didn’t happen, Scott wouldn’t have had a chance to pass me.”

Yes, the details of that 2015 night at Eldora remain clear in Davenport’s mind. His memory of what happens on the racetrack is almost photographic, and the passage of a decade’s time scarcely dulls it.

Davenport started sixth in that 100-lapper, his sixth Dream feature appearance in eight attempts since 2006. (He also had started two World 100s in six tries since ’09.) He marched forward to take the lead from Shane Clanton of Zebulon, Ga., on lap 61 and seized firm control of a race that seemed like it might run green-to-checkered without a caution flag.

After a heartbreaking but self-inflicted demise in the previous year’s Dream, Davenport was racing with much more restraint. He still looked more like Bobby Pierce today, firing around the outside wall, than the patient, middle-running Eldora master he’s now become, but he wasn’t putting himself in bad positions like he had one year earlier.

“If they didn’t go out and do a little something to the track or there was wasn’t a cushion up there, I didn’t think I had a chance to win at that point in my career,” Davenport said. “I had to learn how to pace myself, and I was just learning that at that point, because the year before (in the Dream), I felt like we had the fastest car there. I know I did, and I was coming through the field wide open (from the 21st starting) and I did not pace myself. I was not really driving over my head, but I was taking too many chances, and I ended up going to slide Don O’Neal for third (in turn three on lap 60) and he came kind of rolling through the middle and I didn’t expect him to do that and actually took me and him both out.

“So that was kind of the changing factor in me. After I went back and watched it, I’m like, “Man, you idiot, you need to calm down a little bit here, just got to race smarter.’”

He was following through on that strategy in ’15.

“I think we was checked out,” Davenport said. “We was gone for sure. There wouldn’t have been nobody to have a chance unless something else happened.”

Unfortunately, something did. The feature was finally slowed by a caution on lap 89 for “debris,” though to this day Davenport questions what triggered that stoppage.

“Supposedly, I don’t know … you hear people talk, and I’ve never questioned it or whatever, but supposedly, somebody threw a screwdriver out on the racetrack and then went and got an official and told them that it was out there,” Davenport said. “And that’s what the caution was for.”

Whatever the case, the caution gave Bloomquist a chance to steal the race that he otherwise wouldn’t have had. Davenport smoothly handled the restart and maintained command, but another caution flag, on lap 91 for Gregg Satterlee’s turn-two spin, regrouped the field again for another double-file restart. This time Davenport stumbled, allowing Bloomquist to immediately charge ahead.

“I beat him on the first restart and then I just didn't do as good a job as Scott did on the second one and he beat me to turn one,” Davenport recalled. “Then I kind of was overdriving and spinning the tires, and (Earl) Pearson (Jr.) came up through there and passed me on the bottom (for second). I kind of settled down, got back by Earl and started running Scott back down there, and I had him run down coming to the white (flag).”

That set up the race’s deciding moment. As the hard-charging Davenport ran up on Bloomquist off turn four and then cut to the inside of the leader at the start-finish line to set up a slider entering turn one, he suddenly spotted a slow-moving Jimmy Owens of Newport, Tenn.

“Jimmy was limping around through there and I didn’t really see him,” Davenport said. “I wasn’t looking far enough ahead. I was really concentrating on Scott in my mind because I was running around the wall, and when I went to slide him, I turned down and Jimmy was there.

“I was either going to try to go between Jimmy and Scott and possibly take me and Scott both out, which I knew I’d already messed up the year before and I didn't want to do something even dumber, so I lifted and had to go below Jimmy. And that kind of ruined my shot at trying to pass Scott back.”

Davenport lost too much ground to mount a last-ditch bid on Bloomquist through turns three and four and crossed the finish line in second place. He did beat Bloomquist to the postrace weigh-in, though, which left him angrily replaying the final laps to himself as Bloomquist rolled up on the scales.

“I was definitely pissed,” Davenport said. “That’s probably the reason I was first to the scales, although Scott, you know, he always would slow down trying to get some mud or whatever” after the checkered flag.

“That's back before you had to run the Hans (head-and-neck restraint) and gloves and everything else, and I was already out of the car — smoking a cigarette probably (he was still a smoker then) — and I was sitting at the bottom by the stage, because we didn’t really have much tech at all at that point and I just was waiting on (Bloomquist) to come up through there (to victory lane). And that’s when they say, ‘Oh, s---, he’s possibly light.’ So then I walk up there (towards the scales) and I remember, like, before everything got too dramatic, I tried to, you know, tell him that he done done a good job, he just beat me on the restart …

“But anyway, then I remember he pulled back up on the scales and there still wasn’t no green light. And the he drove off and kind of spun off or whatever (with anger after being DQ’d for being 25 pounds light). I mean, I would have too.”

That’s when Davenport was told he had won the Dream. A famous photo of that very moment shows Davenport standing with his hands on his hips, a smile of recognition on his face, as his fiancee Rachel looks up at him with her hands clasped in front of her mouth and a look of amazement in her eyes, but it was all a whirlwind for him.

“I don’t really remember any emotions or anything going on back then,” Davenport said. “I kind of remember (video) clips from DirtonDirt, you know, kind of showing Rachel and (crew member) Bryan Liverman coming up to me at that point, but, like, at that point, we couldn’t believe what had happened. I mean, that was still when, you know, I ain’t never won anything big like that before.”

The postrace festivities on the stage were like a dream for Davenport as well. He went through the motions, trying to grasp how he had gone from winning to losing to winning again. He knows he hugged his hardscrabble veteran car owner Lee Roy Rumley, but everything happened so fast he can’t recall anything Lee Roy, who died in 2020 at the age of 84, said to him during the celebration.

“You know, that’s a shame. I wish I did, but I really don’t remember what kind of what went on after the race, to be honest with you,” Davenport said of his interaction with Lee Roy. “I know that’s bad. I wish I could remember something, but I sure don’t.”

Davenport knows he savored the victory long into the night (and morning). He was still wearing his no-frills black uniform more than two hours after the checkered flag as music blared from the Rumley trailer and fans hung around to share the moment.

“I guess at that time, the way it went down, I don’t know if you want to call it an upset, but for a first-time crown jewel winner, and me just kind of really getting going to win that big race, I had a pretty decent fan base and maybe won a few over that night, and hell, everybody wanted to come down and party and take pictures and get autographs. So, yeah, I never left the car and had time to go change. I guess at that time, I was just excited and lucky to have all those fans there and I definitely didn't want to leave them hanging.

“That was a long night. Yes, that was a long drinking night. We stayed at the track and I’m sure we probably watched the sun come up that night. I don’t even know that we loaded the car that night. We probably loaded it up the next morning.

“We probably acted a little childish back then,” he continued. “But hell, you got to think about, you know, we never thought we was going to be there at that point. And from Kevin and Lee Roy building their own engines, and me and Kevin doing our own shocks, and, you know, Kevin designing the car … that was a really big night for Kevin also the Rumley family. So, yeah, I guess we celebrated that like we wasn’t supposed to be there or didn’t know how to be there.”

Davenport also had trouble processing the financial enormity of his accomplishment. His percentage of the $100,000 check was mind-blowing.

“It was definitely crazy,” said Davenport, who in early 2021 closed on the purchase of the house and ranch where he now lives with his wife and son. “I hadn’t had no kind of money like that for sure. You know, I was always pretty good about saving and things like that, but the (first house) we bought here in South Carolina (after living with Rachel’s parents), I remember I think we paid $92,000 for the house or whatever, so my percentage for the win would have been almost half of it.

“I mean, that’s more money than I’d ever seen in my life at one time. So, yeah, that was definitely life-changing.”

Davenport has since enjoyed even greater riches from racing, including a record $2 million season in 2022 topped by his Eldora Million victory. But he always turns back to that first Dream, the race that propelled him to the upper echelon of Dirt Late Model racing.

“You can race all your life, but until you’re put in those positions to learn how to lead a race or learn how to pass …” he said, his voice trailing off for a moment as he assessed his breakthrough. “But as long as you remember what you did and you learn from your mistakes … that was years and years of mistakes that I had learned from and finally put it together. 

“And then once you figure out how to do it, well, you remember, ‘Hell, you know, last time I was in this position, instead of going through here and trying to pass all these cars wide open, you know, just be patient. You got plenty of time, you know?’ Just things like that. You got to learn to be there at the end of these big races.”

And make no mistake — Davenport has become an Eldora master because he never forgets his missteps. Those instances cross his mind every time he visits Eldora even more than reliving exciting moments like those surrounding the 2015 Dream.

“I don't necessarily always think of it when I go by the scales,” Davenport said. “But more times than not at Eldora, I always remember things on the track where I messed up and I could have done better. That’s more of the stuff that I remember. The ones I lost and I didn’t win, or the things I could have done better, or the situations that I learned from to make me better the next time I come back.