WOW What a finish at the GO 50
GREENWOOD, Neb. — In one of the closest finishes in series history, Jonathan Davenport edged Scott Bloomquist by 15 milliseconds to win his seventh Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series event of the season on Thursday night at I-80 Speedway.
Davenport took the lead from Bloomquist on lap 37 and stayed in front, with Bloomquist lurking closer and closer as the laps wound down.
Davenport held off the final surge by Bloomquist at the line to win the Malvern Bank Go 50 and the five thousand $2 bills that comes with the victory.
Trailing Davenport and Bloomquist at the finish line were Brandon Sheppard, Chris Simpson and Darrell Lanigan.
“Man, what a race,” Davenport said. “Scott had the best car tonight. I thought while me or Brandon were leading that [Bloomquist] was far gone. Before that caution came out my right rear started vibrating real bad. I was hoping that Brandon would pick the bottom and that meant I would be up top. I was just going to drive it up around that cushion. Sometimes you don’t have the best car, but we were able to get it done.
“I could hear him under me on that final lap. I had a little issue in turn two and I had to get it straightened back out going into three,” Davenport added. “I have already given one away and I didn’t want to again. I just tried to ease into there a little more than I wanted to, and I got to far off of that corner. He has a pretty good car right now and for me to beat him really says a lot about my crew and how hard they have worked to get us back here [in Victory Lane].”
Bloomquist entered the event with two Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series wins in his last three starts. “We were just lacking a little bit,” he said. “We tried to move up and then we started to run him back down. Then on that last lap we went down low and almost got him at the finish.”
Sheppard led the first 16 laps of the race but came home third.
“We were good up top for a while and then I went down low a few times and then back up,” Sheppard said. “We had a pretty good rhythm going. To get third against these guys is great, they are really tough to beat. We put it in the right position for a while, but we will come back to tomorrow and see what we can do to get a good-starting spot for Saturday night.”
The finish:
Jonathan Davenport, Scott Bloomquist, Brandon Sheppard, Chris Simpson, Hudson O’Neal, Darrell Lanigan, Jimmy Owens, Gregg Satterlee, Josh Richards, Don O’Neal, Shane Clanton, Kyle Bronson, Dennis Erb Jr., Chad Simpson, Tim McCreadie, Earl Pearson Jr., Jimmy Mars, Ben Schaller, Billy Moyer, Ricky Weiss, Shannon Babb, Jared Landers, Andrew Kosiski, Bobby Pierce, Mason Zeigler.
Story from National Speed Sport News
