Eldora Speedway
J.D. lends Babb a hand at Dream
By Kevin Kovac
DirtonDirt senior writer
Shannon Babb in the Eldora pit area. (joshjamesartwork.com)
ROSSBURG, Ohio (June 4) — Jonathan Davenport had Thursday’s Dream XXXII preliminary night off from competition. He found something to keep him busy, though, in Eldora Speedway’s pit area. | Complete Dream coverage
Earlier in the week Davenport noticed that he would be competing in Friday’s preliminary action while his buddy Shannon Babb was scheduled to run on Thursday. It prompted J.D. to make his pal an offer.
“I called him, probably, Monday or Tuesday, and I said, ‘If you want me to, I’d be more than glad to try to help a little bit,’ ” said Davenport, who chats often with Babb and is an off-season deer-hunting partner of Babb’s. “I just wanted to help him. He’s really good people. Him and his wife (Emalie) and his girls, they’re great.”
Babb, 52, of Moweaqua, Ill., also has been racing this season in a Longhorn Chassis he bought from Davenport’s Lance Landers-owned team, so Davenport and his Cory Fostvedt-led crew know Babb’s car well. How could Babb turn down Davenport’s overture?
He certainly didn’t. Babb happily welcomed the prelim-night assistance from Davenport and his crew, who threw themselves into their moonlighting gig as Shannon Babb Racing team members. Davenport, 42, of Blairsville, Ga., spent the late afternoon going through Babb’s vehicle at Babb’s trailer parked in the upper pit area — J.D.’s wife, Rachel, even pitched in to wipe down the machine — “a clean car is a fast car,” she said — and when the show began Babb moved his No. 18 to the infield to work out of Davenport’s hauler.
As Davenport and his crew were diving into Babb’s car before the start of Thursday’s racing, Babb joked about the situation unfolding.
“I’m low on help, so I brought in some reinforcements,” Babb said with a smile.
The arrival of Davenport and Co. was an immediate mental pick-me-up for Babb, whose Dream Week had gotten off to a frustrating start. He arrived to the track behind schedule Wednesday after a late departure from his shop, which prevented him from parking alongside Davenport in the infield as he had hoped. He then had his hauler’s generator break down and struggled through Wednesday’s FloRacing Night in America program, qualifying 24th fastest of 42 cars in his group and missing a transfer spot in a B-main by five spots.
“I was ready to just go back to the house,” Babb said.
But Babb, who with the assistance of Eldora general manager Levi Jones obtained a generator to get him through the weekend, stuck around with Davenport and his boys coming aboard to at least help right his teetering ship. During Thursday’s drivers’ meeting, though, Babb made sure to point out that he wasn’t expecting Davenport and the Double L Motorsports gang to be miracle workers with him.
“I haven’t been good here in like 15 years,” Babb said. “J.D. and his guys just went through (the car) to assess where we’re at.”
Indeed, while Babb has turned plenty of laps at Eldora, the place has effectively been a thorn in his side. His results make that clear. He finished third in his first-ever Dream appearance as a 24-year-old in 1998 and has entered the every year since except 2001 and last season, but a 10th-place finish in ’99 is his only other top-10 run in 20 career starts in the 100-lap Dream finale. As for the World 100, Babb infamously was disqualified from an apparent victory in 2005 for weighing in light and finished second in ’06 but has only two top-five and nine top-10 runs in his 17 starts in the crown jewel race’s finale.
Babb’s best finish in an Eldora major over the last 15 years? A ninth in 2012’s World 100. And he owns a single feature win at Eldora in his otherwise distinguished career: a 30-lap preliminary triumph in 2020’s Intercontinental Classic, the Covid-year, no-fans invitational that replaced the World 100.
Davenport, of course, has one of the most sparkling Eldora resumes of any driver in history, including five World 100 trophies and four Dreams. He’s gunning for a record fourth consecutive $100,000 Dream victory this weekend, so there’s no doubt he has knowledge of the Big E that could set Babb on a better path.
As Babb’s crew chief, Davenport took time to adjust to what the veteran driver was looking for in his car, which was in Davenport’s stable last year but only hit the track a modest number of times.
“I wasn’t giving many directives out,” Davenport said of his interaction with Babb. “Just listening, just trying to do what he wanted with the car. Obviously everybody’s driving style’s different, so he definitely likes something different than what I would have. I started one direction and it’s not where he needed to be.”
Babb timed ninth fastest in Thursday's 22-car qualifying group — a bad-luck result since it left him just out of the invert for the heats. He went on to finish eighth in his heat and fifth in the second B-main to miss the 50-lap feature, but he appeared to be gaining speed in the closing laps of the consolation. He even told Davenport afterward that he felt decidedly better come the end of the evening.
“If we could’ve got him to qualify one position better it would’ve been a whole different night for him,” Davenport said. “He would’ve got to start on the pole (in the heat). Both of his starts (in the heat and B-main), he got too good of a start and just got hung in bad air on the bottom coming out of turn two, so he probably lost three or four spots on the first lap both times. Just part of it here.
“We just had him a little off at the beginning. If we could’ve got him more comfortable in hot laps and qualifying, he would’ve been better off.”
The result wasn’t storybook. But perhaps Davenport’s assistance will lead Babb to success in Saturday’s Dream finale — and no matter what, the friends will have something to reminisce about when they’re together in a tree stand in Illinois scoping out deer later this year during their annual hunting trip.
“We’ve gone hunting together probably the last seven or eight years,” Davenport said. “In fact, there’s not many things that I do every year as a tradition besides birthdays and stuff. It’s a fun thing we do.”
