CASA GRANDE, Ariz. (Jan. 18) — The clash between Jonathan Davenport and Tyler Erb on Sunday at Central Arizona Raceway’s Rio Grande Waste Services Wild West Shootout ultimately came down to a difference in perception of racecraft.

From Davenport’s perspective, Erb’s opening-lap slider in their heat race crossed a line. The Blairsville, Ga., veteran felt he had no realistic way to counter the move, saying Erb “took my nose off,” a sequence that angered him enough to confront Erb by briefly parking his mangled race car in front of the Best Performance Motorsports pit stall, where he waited outside his No. 49 machine with arms crossed, ready for the first standoff of the 2026 Dirt Late Model season.

The 29-year-old Erb, however, stood firmly behind how he raced the 42-year-old Davenport, offering a layered justification of his hard-nosed approach after finishing fourth in the feature.

“The facts of the matter is, we went down the front straightaway and he blew my left-side door off,” Erb of New Waverly, Texas, said. “I didn’t turn to the infield — he was in the right part of the racetrack. He was going to slide me into (turn) one, and I was OK with second. But he blew my entire door off.”

That contact, Erb said, dictated his assertiveness from that point forward as he sized up his counterattack entering turn three.

“I got a big run, and honestly, his racecraft was off right there,” Erb continued. “He should’ve blocked a slider knowing I’m coming in hot after that, and he didn’t. He definitely didn’t choose to lift. He tried to wreck me back, which was fair. He tried in the feature, too, and I hit the brakes.”

Davenport, of course, wasn’t going to throw in the towel easily. Although attempts by DirtonDirt to reach him postrace were unsuccessful, Davenport later posted on X that he overheard Erb’s comments after their heat-race clash as he and his Double L Motorsports crew thrashed to make repairs.

“I said somewhere else … we ain’t done yet,” Davenport posted on X.

A fired-up Davenport blitzed through the field, gaining 25 total positions over 60 laps — four spots in the 10-lap B-main and 21 more in the 50-lap feature — to storm back and finish second behind winner Bobby Pierce. He even tracked down and passed Erb along the way with a sweeping, statement-sending slider entering turn three on lap 35 to take third.

After his furious charge forward, Davenport aired his grievances to pit reporter Trenton Berry on the FloRacing broadcast.

“Everybody that’s started on the outside pole of the heat race, he’s hit ‘em. He doesn’t think he does anything wrong. That’s the issue,” Davenport said. “If he could ever learn from his mistakes, we could move on. Hell, we’d be friends, I’m sure. He just won’t ever learn from his mistakes. I really don’t know. Everybody can see what happened. They can watch the video over and over again. Whatever. It don’t matter.”

What Erb took issue with was how Davenport blocked access to his pit stall.

“I don’t agree with he was in my pit stall, and that’s clearly stated in every (rulebook),” Erb said. “I’ve heard all these rules because I’ve been kicked out of both series. … They hold certain people, Jonathan, at a higher pedestal than me. And I’m fine with that. I know my reputation or whatever. But if I pulled to his pit stall tonight and caused a scene, you can bet the farm they throw me out of this place.

“That’s the only thing that made me upset,” he added. “My guys, I’ve done my fair share of stupid stuff, and knock on wood, we’ve made it a good bit and haven’t had any altercations or anything like that. I’m not going to race Jonathan Davenport, the greatest of all-time in his mind, any different I would race Dustin Sorensen or my best buddy in the world. Like, you give what you get.

“In the heat race, he dished it and couldn’t take it,” Erb continued. “Like he’s a good race car driver. There’s nothing you can take away from that. … I would be curious how the situation would’ve played out if I would’ve did that.”

When asked whether he still would have pulled the trigger on his aggressive slider entering turn three on the opening lap of his heat race had he not felt cornered by Davenport on the initial start, Erb said it came down to instinct.

“I don’t know, it’s a split-second decision,” Erb said. “People have a lot of comments, and not a lot of people have been in a split-second decision-making situation like that. I told him the same thing I’ll say right here: I didn’t wake up today and say, ‘You know what, I hope J.D. is next to me so I can crash him getting into turn three of this heat race.’ ”

The situation never escalated into anything physical, though a handful of Wild West Shootout officials intervened to keep team representatives, crew members and bystanders from crowding Davenport and Erb during their toe-to-toe exchange. Davenport also wasn’t the only person Erb had to address Sunday, as Davenport’s car owner Lance Landers, who was present in Casa Grande, and Jared Landers, via an angry text message, confronted Erb as well.

“It’s not lower-class, middle-class or upper echelon — we’re all the same people,” Erb said, recalling his exchange with Davenport. “That’s what I told him. I asked him straight up, ‘What’s your plan here? Are we going to talk?’ And he just wanted to show his ass.”

Davenport had his best finish of the miniseries after backsliding in five straight features heading into Sunday’s finale. His results included a 17th-to-25th finish on Jan. 10, a fade from first to fifth on Jan. 11, fourth to fifth on Jan. 14, sixth to 10th on Jan. 16, and second to third on Jan. 17.

“We’ve had a good car all week, just ain’t had the racing luck to show for it,” Davenport said as part of his postrace interview on the FloRacing broadcast. “We just worked our way up through there, passed some cars on the top, passed some cars through the middle. Had a few breaks go our way. Yeah, just a phenomenal race car.

“It sucks coming here and not getting a win, but we started on the front row twice and never even got to lead a lap. If we could’ve ever gotten some clean air on the nose of this thing, I think we would’ve been really good. We paced Bobby there at the end, I was driving the s--- outta this thing. That was all of its worth, that’s for sure.”

Thanking his crew, Davenport referenced the additional work required following the heat-race clash involving Erb, but used language during the interview that he later addressed. He later apologized on X for his choice of words.

“(For) all the sensitive folks I apologize for using the R word tonight in my interview,” Davenport wrote. “At the time with the adrenaline still pumping I couldn’t think of a better adjective.”

As far as Erb was concerned, he had moved past the clash with Davenport by the start of the 50-lap, $25,000-to-win feature.

“I was over it after the heat. I didn’t race that feature worried about that, and if he did, I hate that I can live rent-free in his head, you know what I mean?” Erb said. “I don’t give a damn. It’s all good. Our team’s good. Our guys are good.”

Davenport, on the other hand, acknowledged the possibility of racing more aggressively moving forward.

“I know I’m going to have to race with him some more,” Davenport said. “We’re just going to start driving everybody else like they drive me.”