DirtonDirt Dispatches

Dispatches: Davenport piling up bonus cash

May 9, 2026, 9:43 am

From series, staff, track and other reports

Jonathan Davenport. (Heath Lawson)

Among the latest notes and quotes from Dirt Late Model action, including weekend regional action on the Schaeffer's Spring Nationals and Comp Cams Super Dirt Series (look for FloRacing tour and Lucas Oil Series coverage elsewhere):

Bonus baby

How can Jonathan Davenport make up at least some of the national tour points-fund cash he’s bypassing this season to run an independent schedule? Collect all the bonus money he can.

So far, so good.

Davenport, 42, of Blairsville, Ga., banked his second bonus check over the past month on Saturday night, earning an extra $10,000 posted by Mark Martin Automotive for completing a sweep of the Comp Cams All-American Super Dirt Series-sanctioned Bad Boy 98 doubleheader at Batesville Motor Speedway in Locust Grove, Ark.

Winning Saturday’s 40-lap feature (worth $12,000) on top of a triumph in Friday’s 30-lap opener (worth $5,000) created a $27,000 weekend for Davenport, who on April 18 pocketed a gargantuan $100,000 bonus upon capturing the $30,000 finale of the inaugural Gauntlet event at Volunteer Speedway in Bulls Gap, Tenn.

With his car owner Lance Landers a partner in Mark Martin Automotive located in Batesville, Davenport joked afterward that he was especially thrilled “to take money from (Batesville promoter) Mooney (Starr) and Lance in the same night.”

Davenport dominated the weekend at his Double L Motorsports team’s hometown track, leading all but the first lap of Friday’s feature and controlling Saturday’s headliner from wire-to-wire. He beat World of Outlaws Late Model Series regular Ethan Dotson of Bakersfield, Calif., by over 1 second both nights to push his 2026 win total to nine.

Saturday’s success, however, didn’t come without a scare for Davenport. He experienced contact with Dotson just before the feature’s halfway mark as they battled for command through lapped traffic.

“We had one little incident with Ethan there,” Davenport said. “Me and him got together on the back straightaway a little bit just racing through the rubber for the lead. It just started rubbering as I got to that lapped traffic and I was trying to move around ‘em and I just couldn’t quite clear ‘em.

“Hopefully it didn’t tear his car up too bad. I was just on the outside as he pushed up the rubber just a little bit.”

The 27-year-old Dotson laid no blame on Davenport for the scrape. In fact, the ASD Motorsports driver took responsibility in his postrace interview.

“I’m sorry to them guys,” Dotson said. “I kind of got into (Davenport) a little bit. I went in there and clipped the inside wall. It knocked my front end off it so I was just kind of hanging on from there trying not to crash.”

With Dotson handicapped by his nose damage, Davenport raced to a repeat of his 2021 Bad Boy 98 weekend sweep. It inflated his total earnings for his nine victories this season to a whopping $220,500, nearly half ($110,000) coming from the two bonuses he’s grabbed. — Series and staff reports

Empire State battle

Hunting the biggest win of his young career, Brock Pinkerous of Ellenville, N.Y., could taste the sweet $10,000 prize for capturing Friday’s 50-lap Jay’s Automotive United Late Model Series-sanctioned Ted Siri Memorial at Outlaw Speedway in Dundee, N.Y.

But after grabbing the lead from Mason Zeigler of Chalk Hill, Pa., on lap 37, the 16-year-old driver soon found himself in a heated tussle for the top spot with Demetrios Drellos of Queensbury, N.Y. The two Empire State racers went at it hard for several circuits, trading sliders in a battle that saw Drellos — also seeking the most important triumph of his Dirt Late Model career — lead laps 43-44 and Pinkerous go back ahead on the 45th lap.

Then came the moment of truth — a tangle on lap 46 as the pair raced for the lead. Drellos lost control of his machine, a caution flag was displayed, and during the caution period Drellos expressed his displeasure by running into Pinkerous’s car and cutting the teenager’s left-rear tire.

Pinkerous was forced to pit, leaving him with a 13th-place finish as Zeigler went on to win. The 29-year-old Drellos, meanwhile, was disqualified by ULMS officials for his actions and credited with 19th in the final rundown.

Following the race, Pinkerous posted a video to his social media in which he commented on the late-race showdown with Drellos.

“The first 30 (laps) I just really tried to conserve and save our stuff and thankfully it came around,” said Pinkerous, whose lone previous Super Late Model triumph came last August at Stateline Speedway in Busti, N.Y. “I had a really nice move around Zeigler there (for the lead) and just got to hard racing with another guy (Drellos) and stuff didn’t go our way and we ended up getting taken out of the race.

“It’s just hard racing. Stuff’s gonna happen. I just hope this doesn’t affect us down the road with anyone else.”

Pinkerous attempted to move on from what had been shaping up to be a memorable night. He set fast time and won a heat race before leading laps 37-42 and 45 of the feature.

“This is one of our best nights of racing we’ve ever had … we had it going,” said the driver known as “Bam-Bam.” “It just sucks, man. It just sucks. Little bit of a bummer but we’ll try again (Saturday) night at Stateline (in a RUSH Crate tour event that was later cancelled by rain).”

Drellos, who started his driving career in his home state’s big-block modified division before migrating to Crate, and then Super Late Model action in recent years, offered his appraisal of his encounters with Pinkerous.

“There’s really not much to say,” Drellos, who was bidding for his first-ever Super Late Model victory, told DirtonDirt. “It was a great effort by our entire team. We put ourselves in position for a really strong finish, and we had a great race going with the 555 (of Pinkerous). Unfortunately, I guess I’m just another driver who ended up falling victim to some of his antics.” — Staff, series and team reports

Toe-dipping Danner

The World of Outlaws Late Model Series is making a stop in the heart of sprint car country next week, and one of open-wheel racing’s bright young stars is set to join the action.

Non-winged sprint ace Briggs Danner will make his World of Outlaws tour debut May 14 at Selinsgrove (Pa.) Speedway in the Lazer Chassis Racing No. 31. It’s the first of seven planned starts this season in the ride which Danner is sharing with big-block modified driver Billy Pauch Jr.

Danner, a 24-year-old Allentown, Pa., driver, won multiple quarter-midget championships before moving up into the SpeedSTR division at several area tracks. He went sprint car racing at age 19, winning almost immediately.

Danner won back-to-back USAC East Coast Sprint Car Series championships in 2022 and 2023, and his 32 victories make him the winningest driver in the tour’s history. He hit the road with the Amsoil USAC Sprint Car National Championship in 2024 and has since won eight races, most recently at Lawrenceburg (Ind.) Speedway on April 11.

But Danner has always had an itch to get behind the wheel of any race car he can get his hands on, and a conversation at the end of 2024 got the ball rolling on giving Super Late Models a try. He got connected with Lazar Chassis builder Jim Bernheisel and his racing partner Denny Superko, debuting in the division at Bridgeport (N.J.) Motorsports Park last June with a fourth-place finish. He made another start at Selinsgrove, finishing 16th.

While he doesn’t intently follow the division, Danner said he’s “always loved Late Models and just everything about them. The fenders, the aero, the four-link stuff, just everything about them, I’ve always loved. There’s just not a lot of it by us. To be able to get my feet wet in it with Denny and Jim and those guys was a pretty cool deal, and I’m willing to run as much as I can with them.”

Does he expect his sprint car seat time at Selinsgrove to give him an edge against WoO’s top Late Model drivers?

“It’s tough. Like, when I ran Bridgeport, obviously I knew the racetrack, but anything as far as driving the car was totally thrown out the window,” Danner said. “It didn’t mean anything to me, and in fact, anything I knew about driving a race car probably hurt me, honestly. It was like learning all over again. To go to a place like Selinsgrove where I don’t have too many laps, I have some laps there, but it’s just so much different in a big car, let alone a Late Model. We have a lot of good guys coming, obviously, so I’m going to have to try to figure it out pretty quick.” — Spence Smithback