Fast Talk presented by MD3 and Five Star Bodies
Fast Talk: J.D. sweep and Senoia recap
With Jonathan Davenport sweeping Senoia’s FloRacing Night in America weekend and Bobby Pierce clinching the title, our roundtable discusses that and more in the weekly feature presented by MD3 and Five Star Race Cars Bodies (edited for clarity and length):
Discuss Jonathan Davenport’s late-season winning streak.
Kevin Kovac, DirtonDirt senior writer: Maybe Davenport’s frustrating failure in the Lucas Oil Series Chase for the Championship — including a bad break that cost him a shot at victory in the season-ending Dirt Track World Championship at Eldora — lit a fire under him and his team to end the season. He’s been on his own mini Vengeance Tour the last couple weeks, one that’s been extremely impressive considering the competition he’s beaten at Charlotte and Senoia. It’s also given him his first 20-win Dirt Late Model season since 2022 and seventh time overall. J.D. is rolling so well right now, I have a feeling he might add one more victory to his run in the upcoming Gateway Dirt Nationals, a race on a tiny indoor track that’s not really in his wheelhouse (his best career finish is fourth in four career feature starts) but, with its richest payday ever ($70,000) on the line, is going to bring out his best.
Todd Turner, DirtonDirt managing editor: This is one of those cases where J.D. probably wishes it was midseason instead of November. The car he debuted at Charlotte has won four straight races with only one serious challenge (from Hudson O’Neal in the Charlotte finale). As he alluded to in victory lane at Senoia, this is the kind of streak he’d like to have been on during the Lucas Oil playoffs, but the timing wasn’t right. It’s a consolation prize, of sorts, but Davenport has piled up more than $90,000 over the last two weekends — not bad.
Kyle McFadden, DirtonDirt staff reporter: He’s been quintessential J.D. all season long. Now by virtue of four straight victories, his 21 triumphs this year with a handful of crown jewels to boot amplifies his case for our Driver of the Year (which we’ll get to shortly). I’m sure Davenport’s thought, if only I had this kind of fortune during the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series playoffs where nothing seemingly went his way. Everything is clicking for him of late. Now can he win his first Gateway Dirt Nationals in December?
Aaron Clay, DirtonDirt weekend editor: Jonathan Davenport has been on one heck of a hot streak to end the 2025 season. Not only does J.D. have four straight victories in the Longhorn Chassis he debuted a weekend earlier at Charlotte's World Finals, but he also has 10 feature wins since an Aug. 15 Topless 100 prelim victory at Batesville Motor Speedway in Locust Grove, Ark. That's 10 wins — nearly half of his 21 total victories this season — coming in his last 24 starts, averaging one feature win in every 2.4 starts over that span.
What else struck you about Senoia?
McFadden: I want to address Friday's rulings that benefitted Jonathan Davenport and Bobby Pierce. I honestly took no serious issue with giving Davenport and Pierce their spots back in the moment, but also understand after those close calls, conversations must happen to eliminate gray areas as much as possible. Davenport admitted he clipped Tyler Millwood ever so slightly, and by rule, he should’ve been sent to the tail. But like in pro sports, sometimes camera angles don’t capture enough evidence to overrule a call. That’s why Davenport kept his spot, I believe. In that instance, I would put a series official on both ends of the track to have extra eyes watching for calls like those. As for Pierce, technically his car never not moving and, by rule, I can justify why he was allowed to blend back in. Nowhere in the FloRacing Series rulebook does it say that a driver’s wheels must continue spinning to blend back in — only a driver’s car. Now, obviously Pierce’s wheels stopped for a split second when he shifted into reverse, but his car kept creeping down the banking in the process. After all that, the blend rule needs to be rewritten or honestly abolished altogether because it’s a safety concern as well. Besides, at the end of the day, I’ve always given the benefit to competitors fighting for a title when it comes to 50-50 calls.
Turner: I discussed this with Michael and Kevin on the prerace show, but I love Senoia's slick-track racing and I’m so glad the weather cooperated to allow the Pollards to get the surface right. What does strike me though, is the immense of amount of traction our modern-day cars are able to muster on the surface. I think if you look at video on similar surfaces from 20 years ago, the cars tend to “skate” around the slippery tracks, tip-toeing around in a search for traction. At Senoia, the speeds were impressive on such a surface, which allowed dramatic groove-switching (which caused havoc on occasion, particularly with the Pierce-Bronson contact in Friday’s feature).
Clay: Some would say Senoia Raceway's track surface is perfect when it slicks over and we saw plenty of that during last weekend's Peach State Classic doubleheader. While some drivers are better on a slicked-off surface, others prefer a hefty, moisture-filled cushion to lean on and Senoia's preparation offered both conditions throughout each night. Senoia's slicked-off surface gave drivers the most options, with some opting to rest their right-rear quarterpanel on the wall, while others tried to get their left-rear tire digging around what little moisture clung to the track's inner hub.
Kovac: I was struck by how the Peach State Classic nearly duplicated last year’s weekend, when Ricky Thornton Jr. won both features and overtook Bobby Pierce for the FloRacing tour title. Davenport swept the doubleheader just like RTJ but couldn’t quite overcome Pierce in the standings, falling six points shy after Pierce tallied finishes of sixth and seventh. There was points drama, too, with Pierce having to rally from a flat tire following a scrape with Brandon Overton in Saturday’s finale, plus some controversy when officials ruled that Pierce could keep his seventh-place spot in Friday’s feature because his wheels didn’t stop turning when he went spinning in a five-to-go tangle with Kyle Bronson.
Consider another weekend result or recent news item.
Turner: Sawyer Crigler’s championship on the 4 State Dirt Late Model Series is impressive, but that’s a modest regional circuit for Limited Late Models. The Alton, Mo., 26-year-old stepped up in class in other 2025 events with a couple of podium finishes in ULRA action, but he made a much bigger step Saturday at Springfield Raceway with a $6,000 Turkey Bowl victory. That marks his richest payday and he outran a talented field including Terry Phillips, Dillon McGowan, Tony Jackson Jr., Payton Looney (as well as his father Scott Crigler, a multiple-time Turkey Bowl winner). And how about those 70 entries? That gives Springfield one of the biggest car counts nationally in 2025.
McFadden: Cherokee Speedway put a nice bow on its Cherokee Chief Super Late Model season in which it hosted five shows paying more $10,000-to-win and as part of an eight-race open-competition schedule. With an average car count of 30.3 in those eight Super events, I’d say it was well-supported all year long. Of course, a shoutout to Joseph Joiner for collecting the Cherokee Chief’s $10,000 champion’s point fund and tip of the cap to the Hunt the Front gang for promoting the miniseries all year long. I hope all parties are able to bring back the Cherokee Chief miniseries in 2026 or at least a healthy Super Late Model schedule to the South Carolina staple next season.
Kovac: Chris Ferguson hasn’t had a very productive season in terms of victories as he’s worked on learning his Stinger Race Car and building his new race car seat business, but he shined bright in winning Sunday’s Carolina Clash-sanctioned Freddy Smith Memorial for a $15,000 payday at Cherokee Speedway. His second win of 2025 (he also captured a Clash race at Cherokee in September) had some sentimental significant as well: as a social media post by Kyle Armstrong pointed out, it came almost 16 years to the day that the Hall of Famer Freddy Smith drove Ferguson’s family-owned car in Cherokee’s Blue-Gray 100 while Ferguson ran the race in the K&L Rumley Enterprises No. 6.
Clay: The American Crate All-Star Series concluded its 2025 season with Saturday's Pro Late Model Paramount at Natural Bridge (Va.) Speedway. Even though Justin Williams controlled all 60 laps, I was impressed with the clean racing on track and the night's swift-moving program. After 54 laps were completed clean and green, the 27-minute race's lone caution flew for a driver slowing with a flat tire on the 55th lap, setting up a five-lap sprint to the checkers. Williams won the $10,000 top prize en route to clinching the track championship, while Tyler Arrington earned the American All-Star Series title.
DirtonDirt will announce a consensus on Driver of the Year next month. Without mentioning names, discuss your criteria when weighing your input.
Clay: Obviously, a driver's overall body of work — across the entire 2025 season — should rank near the top of criteria to be considered when ranking Driver of the Year candidates. However, I would argue that a driver's performance at the end of the season should outweigh another driver's early-season accomplishments. To put it simply, the Driver of the Year award should be a perfect mixture of what a driver did over the entire season, while also receiving strong influence from the season's final power rankings.
Kovac: I feel like figuring out the Driver of the Year always naturally comes into focus for me. I’m not using some special formula, assigning degree-of-difficulty points to finishes or anything like that. I just consider a driver’s number of wins — and specially crown jewel/big-money victories — series success and earnings. If there’s two drivers that seem pretty close in those categories, then I’ll look at their success in head-to-head races. My final decision ultimately becomes pretty clear. (As a side note, I’d like to note here once again something that I see people continue to forget: our DirtonDirt Top 25 is not a Driver of the Year poll. It’s a power ranking of drivers’ strength over a current snippet of the season, not their overall body of work.)
Turner: There’s definitely the statistical part of victory totals, tour titles, earnings and head-to-head competition. And even deeper, which drivers had the victories in the biggest races and against the best competition. Somewhere in the mix is the intangibles of how drivers performed — perhaps among the races I saw live. Some seasons, sorting out the Driver of the Year and the top five is fairly obvious. Other seasons it can be a tossup among multiple positions. I’m still sorting out my decisions, but this season appears to be somewhere in the middle as far as the difficulty in making the selections.
McFadden: Obviously sheer number of victories, money earned and overall statistics is a good starting place when forming a criteria. There are four guys who have legitimate cases for Driver of the Year, with two of them, in my opinion, that’ll make this year’s voting quite close. But anyways, I like to break down each victory among contending drivers. That is, prestige, winner’s purses, who was in the field and how said driver won the race. I also like looking at head-to-head records, too. I can tell you one thing and that’s we all give this a ton of thought. Whoever wins Driver of the Year will be deserving.
In December we’ll look at the 2000-2025 era. Pick one significant difference in Dirt Late Model racing today vs. 2000.
Kovac: There’s of course pretty significant changes in bodywork, technology, rules and simply how cars are driven, but I can’t help but note that today we have two full-fledged national tours where in 2000 there was just one — the old Hav-A-Tampa/UDTRA circuit — that could qualify as being close to “national.” And that series didn’t travel as far-flung nor boast as many regulars or pay as much in points-fund cash as today’s Lucas Oil and World of Outlaws tours. It’s amazing how many more drivers are able to make a living now with two national series and the financial incentives they provide.
McFadden: Not to make everyone feel old, but I was barely 4 years old in 2000, so I don’t remember anything then (for context, I vaguely remember Dale Earnhardt’s death in 2001). My earliest memories are in the 2005 range. Obviously streaming has turned our racers into more well-known superstars. The cars have changed significantly as well, specifically how contorted the bodies have become and how hiked up the rear ends get when drivers are on the fuel. It seems like the pace of races is far more intense and there’s less reward for smoother drivers as years go on. Those are some quick-hitting thoughts since I don’t have anything profound to recall.
Clay: One of the most significant differences is the overall appearance and it's easy to see. Today's Dirt Late Models have extremely sloped front noses and dramatic flaring quarterpanels, while previous generations featured mostly straight-paneled bodies. With an influx of aerodynamic engineering, today's bodies are sculpted to take advantage of air passing over the car, using downforce to literally push it into the track. Late Models from the early 2000s certainly looked more "stock appearing" and featured mostly flat panels, likely because it was easier, or more affordable, to make them that way.
Turner: A big one for me is electronic scoring. It’s amazing how quickly we’ve come to take transponder-style scoring for granted. In the analog scoring days, I was proud to be savvy enough to unofficially hand-score races myself (even while shooting photos in the infield). Of course, I couldn’t always track exact lap counts or margins of victory by time (most often we used lengths or cars or straightaways). These days, we have a vast array of data that provides a fuller dissection of races and incredible details. Life is so much easier. I do find it hilarious, however, that in those rare instances where electronic scoring fails (usually briefly), I’m mostly flustered in trying to revert to my skills of 20 years ago (I think Kevin’s retained those skills better than me!).
