The final East Bay Winternationals continued on Friday night, February 9th with the Lucas Oil Late Model Series back on the track. And for the fifth straight night, a new winner would emerge as Georgia's Jonathan Davenport would win the main event with a strong run that would produce victory.
By this time of the week, the field is pretty much set and seventy two drivers would sign in to race although there were still two drivers on Friday that made their first racing appearances of the week. Mike Spatola's rig has been sitting in the pits for a couple days now and on Friday they finally decided to run for the first time. Also, Adam Boyd, who lives just the roar in Riverview, made his first appearance of the series. In total, eighty five different teams have turned laps here this week.
On Friday night the ante would go up as the top prize would be twelve thousand dollars to the winner and the distance of the main would also increase to fifty laps. Qualifying on Friday would produce some surprises with some of the best drivers mired back in the pack and some different names starting toward the front. The two groups would see Davenport and Blair Nothdurft turn the quickest laps while the biggest surprise was that the young South Dakota driver Nothdurft would be fastest overall at 14.167 seconds. This would give him the pole for the first heat race and although he couldn't translate that to a victory, he would at least qualify for the main event which has been a struggle for many of the drivers.
No changes in Friday night's format as six heats and three B Features would set the running field for the main event. However, the struggles of some of the top competitors would see thirty drivers start the main with several having to fall back on provisional starts. In fact, with Ricky Thornton Jr, Tim McCreadie, Max Blair, Brandon Sheppard and Devin Moran all starting in the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth rows, you knew that the competition level just to make the main was fierce.
It would seem that Al Varnadore and his crew have hit on the correct formula for track prep the last few nights. The track is very fast but it is also not just a one groove track. The drivers are running at a tremendous pace, pushing hard and fast on every lap but they still remain all over the track with passing and re passing going on constantly.
Davenport would be one of two race leaders during the event which was highlighted not so much by the race for the lead but the tremendous amount of infighting for top five positions plus other drivers making head long rushes through the field. The kind of stuff that you don't see while watching on tv but must be in the house in order to fully catch.
Davenport would be challenged by "The Magic Man", Mark Whitener for the early lead with Tyler Erb moving to third. The face of the race would change quickly and early when second running Whitener would lose a driveshaft on lap seven and at the same time, fifth running Garrett Smith would again be bit by bad luck, with a rather spectacular looking engine fire triggering a red flag and a quick bail out by Smith. All was ok though, and the race would restart with Davenport now being chased by Tyler Erb and Jimmy Owens.
Davenport was running higher on the track where most were running early while Erb was trying lower on the track. On lap thirteen Davenport would bobble and stick the nose of his car in the mud in turn one and by the time he got going, Erb was passing him for the lead. While Erb continued to lead, Davenport would stick with him as Hudson O'Neal, Garrett Alberson and Ashton Winger were all making moves to get into the top five.
That would be the running order at the halfway point of the race and soon after that, Davenport picked up the pace and begin to challenge Erb back for the lead. He made several preliminary attempts and then on lap twenty nine, slid hard under Erb in turn four. There was some slight contact as Davenport would get by and take over the lead and shortly after that Erb started to slow, lose positions and eventually pull in with suspension issues. Whether or not the contact caused the problems, you would have to ask "Terbo" himself.
After that, Davenport would lead the rest of the race although O'Neal hustled up to make it fairly close and while Hudson couldn't attempt a real challenge, one slip by the leader would have meant disaster.
And while the top two were secure, a great battle went on for the other top five spots. At one point it looked like Alberson was going to pass O'Neal for second and then the next second he was instead getting passed for third by Daulton Wilson as these drivers were putting on an excellent show while all were running incredibly hard. Winger was right in that mix and but would settle for fifth.
Meanwhile, Thornton Jr and Sheppard would forge runs into the top ten, all while running the last thirteen four laps nonstop which would make the whole event more intense. Twenty two of the starters would see the checkered flag with six a lap down as the lapped traffic was well behaved on this night and didn't factor into the racing.
Friday night, with fantastic weather, the crowd got even bigger if that was possible with many folks getting to the track by early afternoon, just to find a parking spot where they wouldn't be chased by gators afterward. I'm only partially joking here too. Gridlock after the races has led to many people roaming the pits, just to kill time while knowing that traffic will be bottled up for a long period of time. With more excellent weather in the forecast for Saturday, it looks like the East Bay Winternationals will go out with a bang.
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