Golden Isles Speedway
Davenport delivers at GIS after Ocala mishap
By Kevin Kovac
DirtonDirt senior writer
A victorious Jonathan Davenport. (joshjamesartwork.com)
BRUNSWICK, Ga. (March 4) — Jonathan Davenport wasn’t going to waste another front-row starting spot. That was quite certain as he led the field to the green flag from the pole in Wednesday night’s 30-lap Wieland Winternationals opener at Golden Isles Speedway.
Just six days after crashing out on the opening lap of a Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series feature at Ocala (Fla.) Speedway that he started from the outside pole, Davenport was flawless in southern Georgia. The 42-year-old star from Blairsville, Ga., fended off some early pressure and went on to dominate the caution-free race from wire-to-wire for a $7,000 victory.
It was just the type of effort that would allow Davenport to push aside the frustrating memory of his ordeal at Ocala, where he accepted blame for clipping the right-rear corner of polesitter Kyle Bronson’s car to set off a wreck in which Davenport backed into the wall between turns one and two and nearly flipped. But J.D. wasn’t thinking about his own morale after his first triumph of 2026.
“I just got redemption from my guys, really,” Davenport said, directing his comment toward his Cory Fostvedt-led crew. “I hurt that car and they had to drive all the way back up to Longhorn (in China Grove, N.C.) and then back down here, so definitely some more work and some more miles in the truck, windshield time, that didn’t need to happen.
“Just thankful for them, for all the hard work and the great car they prepare for me week in and week out.”
Davenport wasn’t behind the wheel of the Ocala crash car at Golden Isles, but it was inside the Double L Motorsports team’s trailer following a whirlwind repair process. Fostvedt, Tyler Bragg and Jacob Banks left Ocala’s pit area last Saturday immediately after Davenport’s fourth-place finish in the feature driving his other car and were at the Longhorn shop by morning. Longhorn staffers came in to replace the front and rear clips of the damaged machine and the crew members spent all day Monday reassembling it before heading to Golden Isles that evening.
The team decided to keep the rebuilt vehicle parked for Wednesday’s action in favor of the relatively fresh car that Davenport turned to for Ocala’s finale. Fostvedt said it’s performed very well in limited use since they debuted it for last November’s FloRacing Night in America Peach State Classic at Senoia (Ga.) Raceway; Davenport swept Senoia’s doubleheader, and his next starts in the car, during January’s Rio Grande Waste Services Wild West Shootout at Central Arizona Raceway in Casa Grande, produced consecutive finishes of third and second.
Davenport had the car humming on Wednesday after a slow start in which he timed only ninth-fastest in his 20-car qualifying group. Starting fifth in the first heat, however, was no obstacle for Davenport, who shot through the pack to win the prelim — and most importantly secure the pole position for the A-main — by completing his charge with a pass of Chandler, Ariz.’s Ricky Thornton Jr. for the lead.
“I was a little skeptical of being in the first heat,” Davenport said. “It can either be really good or really bad, but sometimes it’s better to be the one chasing than the one out front.
“As the heat race kind of progressed, Ricky was moving around. Obviously he could see the groove was moving down, and so (Brandon) Overton showed him a nose and he went to block the next lap, and Overton got caught in his air and I got by him. So then I railed the top in (turns) three and four and got a run on (Thornton).”
Davenport’s initial challenge of Thornton was thwarted. The next lap he changed tactics and slid Thornton through turns three and four to assume command.
“I guess he thought I was gonna do the same thing (around the top),” Davenport said. “I was just trying to change it up, do something different.”
Noting he “definitely got lucky just being able to move around starting back a little bit” in the heat, Davenport took advantage of his unexpected pole start. He huddled with his crew, drew upon his Golden Isles experience and came up with a plan that he understood might put him in a precarious spot for a few laps but would likely be his best option for the long haul.
“My guys keep great notes and we was looking at notes from last year and looking at times and just really studying the racetrack, and we made a little bit of a gamble on tire call there and it paid off,” said Davenport, who opted to use a 3-compound Hoosier tire on his car’s right-rear that was harder than some of his softer-choosing rivals. “We was a little bit different on tires so I knew if I could make it through the first couple of laps, with those other guys being on softer tires, that I should be OK unless we had a bunch of cautions.
“As you can see when we took off, they all swarmed on me, but we were just good enough.”
Brian Shirley of Chatham, Ill., threw a challenge to Davenport on lap four, but that was about the extent of his threats. Davenport built an edge of over a straightaway before eighth-starting Hudson O’Neal of Martinsville, Ind., reached second place on lap 19 and closed to within 1.194 seconds at the checkered flag on a track surface that Davenport labeled “awesome.”
“It was wide enough where I could kind of go in in the middle and float to the top, catch just a little bit leaving there, the little banking that (the track crew) got built up there off the corner.”
The victory was Davenport’s first of a ’26 season that is seeing him run an independent, pick-and-choose schedule, which led him to delay the start of his Georgia-Florida Speedway competition until last week at Ocala. He tallied four top-five finishes in six starts during January’s Wild West Shootout but couldn’t quite break through.
“We thought we was primed a couple of times there in Arizona to get the first win, but tonight, that was our first lap led,” Davenport said. “Like we'd start on the front row and just never could lead that first lap, get clean air on the nose. And then we just never had a good enough car in Arizona to get back up through there after the first lap.”
Davenport also snapped a decade-long win drought at Golden Isles dating back to Feb. 6, 2016, when he captured the first half of a day-night doubleheader for the Lucas Oil Series. Previously a winner during Speedweeks at Golden Isles in 2012, ’14 and ’15, Davenport went winless in 20 feature starts at the track since his last triumph with three runner-up and five third-place finishes over that span.
