PORTSMOUTH, Ohio (Aug. 31) — There was a time in the not-too-distant past when Portsmouth Raceway Park could be a frustrating venue for Jonathan Davenport.

Judging by Davenport’s dominant flag-to-flag victory in the 3/8-mile oval’s 50-lap Bob Miller Memorial on Saturday night, however, he just might be beginning to figure the place out quite well.

Davenport, 35, of Blairsville, Ga., had his Lance Landers-owned Longhorn car rolling at Portsmouth, a track that vexed him before he broke through for his first win Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series win there on Sept. 3, 2016. He went on to record top-five finishes in four of his next six starts at the track — and in his seventh on Saturday, he won going away.

After bolting off the outside pole to beat front-row mate Tyler Erb of New Waverly, Texas, for the lead at the initial green flag, Davenport was without a peer. Josh Richards of Shinnston, W.Va., stayed within 1 second of Davenport for a 15-lap stretch following a lap-20 restart before the defending Lucas Oil Series champion steadily pulled away over the remaining circuits to clinch the $12,000 triumph.

Davenport’s Lucas Oil Series-leading 11th victory of 2019 came by a commanding margin of 4.195 seconds over the Clint Bowyer Racing XR1 Rocket car piloted by the 31-year-old Richards, a two-time winner of the Dirt Track World Championship at Portsmouth. Richards held strong in second after overtaking Erb on lap six but couldn’t summon enough sustained speed to seriously threaten Davenport.

Tim McCreadie of Watertown, N.Y., who won his first Lucas Oil Series feature of 2019 the previous night at Ponderosa Speedway in Junction City, Ky., finished third in his Sweeteners Plus-backed Longhorn house car after starting 10th. He passed Erb coming to the white flag to secure the final podium position.

Erb, 22, settled for a fourth-place finish in the Best Performance Motorsports XR1 Rocket and Jimmy Owens of Newport, Tenn., placed fifth in the Ramirez Motorsports XR1 Rocket after starting eighth.

Davenport acknowledged that, even with his uptick in performance at PRP over the past four seasons — including a fifth-place finish in the Lucas Oil Series’s first visit to the track this year on July 4 — he still hadn’t felt extremely comfortable circling the speedway. That led him to enter Saturday’s program with a more open mind about his setup and it paid off.

“Everybody knows if you keep up with it that I’m not good here,” Davenport said. “I didn’t even know the directions to victory lane here, so we all went to work today. I made a joke, I said, ‘Everybody on the team just pick one corner (of the car) and put whatever you want to on here,’ because we are so bad here normally. We can run fifth to 10th, and that’s about it. We can luck up and maybe get a third.

“We changed a bunch of stuff and … wow!”

Davenport was thrilled with his No. 49, which he called “one of the easiest driving cars I’ve ever had.”

“It drove so easy, I couldn’t really tell if I was making or losing time anywhere,” said Davenport, who extended his already commanding lead in the Lucas Oil Series points standings. “It was just so easy to drive pretty much anywhere it was, top or bottom. Usually when you’re like that you’re a little too free when you get into lapped traffic so I was a little worried there, but they said I held my own.

“I gotta thank McCreadie and Kevin (Rumley, the Bilstein Shocks technical representative who works closely with McCreadie and has a longtime relationship with Davenport). They helped me a little bit on some things that we’ve been trying.

“Man, I’ll tell you what, I get tired of chasing them Rockets cars around here, so maybe we got something for that Randall Edwards (crew chief of Tyler Erb’s car). He’s awful good no matter who’s in that 1 car when they come here for that hundred-thousand.”

While Davenport never felt any real serious pressure, he felt fortunate that he had the advantage of starting on the front row. He intimated that the 45-year-old McCreadie would have offered him a formidable challenge if he hadn’t had to battle forward from the 10th starting spot after finishing behind Davenport in their heat race.

“I think I would’ve had my hands full with Timmy,” Davenport related. “He started further back, and if we hadn’t been in the same heat race maybe we would’ve both won one and it would’ve been a helluva race between us two.”

The victory had Davenport anxious to return to Portsmouth for the Oct. 18-19 DTWC, the $100,000-to-win event that closes the Lucas Oil Series campaign.

“I used to really not like coming to this place,” Davenport said. “I love the facility, I love the characteristics of the racetrack, I love how it’s shaped, but I just never ran good good here. So now I look forward to coming back for the hundred thousand.”

Richards, who won last year’s DTWC, asserted that he felt right at home as usual at Portsmouth. He thought some rear bodywork damage to his car likely cost him in his pursuit of Davenport.

“Davenport had clean air out front and was really good,” said Richards, who started third. “I didn’t realize at one point my spoiler got half-way ripped off and it kind of scared me. When I got out and looked, I thought, Well, that probably explains a little bit why we were so free (handling) at the end.

“(Davenport) pulled away once the grip (in the surface) went away,” he added. “Had that not happened, I think we might have at least had a shot.”

McCreadie, meanwhile, finished just a half-second behind Richards after making his white-flag pass of Erb for third. He was pleased with his advance forward (“We took a big swing at shocks this week and I think it showed that we’re getting better,” he said), but he knew his heat-race finish cost him dearly.

“I made a bad mistake in the heat and that put us behind so we had to dig,” McCreadie said.”It would’ve been nice to start up front with these guys and seen what we could’ve done.”

Four caution flags slowed the race, all during its first half. Jason Jameson of Lawrenceburg, Ind., who won his first-ever Lucas Oil Series event last year at Portsmouth, brought out the first yellow flag on lap six when he slowed with a broken water pump in his Rattliff Racing machine. Subsequent cautions flew on lap eight for Don O’Neal of Martinsville, Ind., who slid sideways between turns three and four with his left-side door facing traffic; and on lap 20, first for Dustin Linville of Bryantsville, Ky., slowing and then Brandon Fouts of Kite, Ky., spinning in turn three on the restart.

Notes: Davenport’s 46th career win Lucas Oil Series victory broke him out of a tie for third on the tour’s all-time win list with Don O’Neal. He now trails only Scott Bloomquist (94 wins) and Jimmy Owens (63). … Devin Moran of Dresden, Ohio, and his Dunn Benson Motorsports crew had to make repairs to the front end of his car after he experienced problems in his heat race. … Shanon Buckingham of Morristown, Tenn., used a Lucas Oil Series provisional after mechanical trouble prompted him to pull out his backup car. … Portsmouth hosted the Lucas Oil Series for the second time this season and 26th time in series history. ... The race honored Bob Miller, the late racing sponsor and supporter from Leburn, Ky., who passed away in 2014. The logos of Miller’s businesses, Miller Brothers Coal and Miller Brothers Construction, adorned a number of cars through the years, including Jack Boggs, Scott Bloomquist, Ronnie Johnson and Eddie Carrier Jr.