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Davenport takes Diamond Nationals finale

By Lyndal Scranton (Wheatland, MO) -- The official statistics will show that Jonathan Davenport led the final 50 laps, but his drive to victory in the finale of the 13th annual CMH Diamond Nationals Presented by Super Clean was anything but easy.

Davenport, of Blairsville, Georgia, held off a late challenge from veteran Mike Marlar for a nail-biting $15,000 triumph Sunday night at Lucas Oil Speedway, earning his ninth victory of the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series season.

PHOTO CREDIT: Lloyd Collins/Fast Track Photos -- http://www.highfly-nphotos.com

"We finally got some speed back in this thing," the series points leader and reigning series champ said after his second Diamond Nationals win, going with one in 2015. His winning margin over Marlar was three-tenths of a second.

"I have to thank my crew," Davenport added. "We've had a hell of a week so far. We put our heads together last night before the feature and made this thing a whole lot better, parlayed into today and it was really superb."

Davenport finished fifth on Saturday in the first Diamond Nationals feature, won by Jimmy Owens. That was after back-to-back finishes of 16th and 18th in LOLMDS features at Tri-City Speedway on Thursday and Friday.

"This team is very, very good from the bottom to the top," Davenport said. "We'll put our heads together and work hard and maybe we'll get another championship."

Marlar - who nearly pulled off a pass for the lead with eight laps to go and another three laps before the finish - was second. Shanon Buckingham was third with Tim McCreadie fourth and Billy Moyer fifth.

Davenport had the fast qualifying time of 15.056 seconds, then won his heat race to earn pole position for the 60-lap feature with McCreadie starting to his outside.

McCreadie jumped to the front at the start and paced the first 10 laps under pressure from Davenport with Scott Bloomquist third and Shannon Babb fourth. Davenport gained his first lead on lap 11, using a crossover move in turn two to slip past McCreadie.

The leaders already were weaving through lapped cars when a caution by lap 15, when Hudson O'Neal went for a spin to bring out a caution.

Davenport sprinted away after the restart and opened a 2.5-second lead over the trio of McCreadie, Bloomquist and Babb when Tony Jackson Jr. slowed to a stop on lap 29, producing the second caution.

Owens, shooting for a Diamond Nationals sweep after his win on Saturday, worked his way into third place by lap 32. But Owens spun between turns three and four on lap 41, and had to restart at the rear of the field. He wound up 17th.

By lap 50, Davenport and Marlar had separated from by about 10 car lengths with Marlar, who started 10th, putting heavy pressure on the leader. Just as Marlar nosed in front as the duo raced off turn two on lap 52, the yellow flag flew when Tyler Erb spun in turn four.

That saved the lead for Davenport and set up an eight-lap shootout.

"I guess that caution did save us," Davenport said. "Mike's been really good here lately. He's been really consistent everywhere he's been."

Marlar, of Winfield, Tennessee, nosed underneath Davenport coming off turn four with three to go, but Davenport repelled the challenge. He held on from there and crossed the finish line two car lengths in front.

"I had the pass of the night made right there when that happened and it set me back pretty good," Marlar said of his near-pass when the late caution came out. "Heck, you know what? As much as I'd like to whine about that, I got paid to drive a race car today and that's not too bad."

Buckingham, from Morristown, Tennessee, had a stellar run from ninth to third and appeared to be as strong as the top two at the end.

"I feel like being patient and finesse driving is where we shine," Buckingham said. "I'm tickled to death. I know it's now a win, but I'm probably more excited about it than Jonathan is."

Bloomquist, the defending Diamond Nationals champion, finished seventh. Shannon Scott was the biggest mover, winding up eighth after starting 25th. Lucas Oil MLRA Series points leader Will Vaught of Crane was the top Missouri finisher, earning ninth.

Street Stocks: Kyle Slader led wire-to-wire to earn the O'Reilly Auto Parts Street Stocks feature win, holding off Tony Anglin of Walnut Ridge, Arkansas by 1.2 seconds.

"We've battled a lot of (bad) luck this year. I've been wanting to win here for a while. We finally got it done. We had a great all, all 30 laps," Slader said. "We were using tonight as a test session for the Big Buck 50 and it went as good as it could."

Slader started on the front row and led from the onset, pulling away to a four-second lead by lap 10 when the race's first caution wiped out that big margin.

But the Muskogee, Oklahoma driver was up to the challenge on each of three more restarts the remainder of the 30-lap feature to capture the $1,000 victory.

Lucas Oil Speedway weekly series regular Bob Barnett of Republic finished third ahead of James Flood of Crane and Joplin's John Coats.

"It was a dang good run for us, that's for sure," Barnett said.

13th annual CMH Diamond Nationals results (July 14, 2019)

Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series/Lucas Oil MLRA

A Feature - 1, Jonathan Davenport. 2, Mike Marlar. 3, Shannon Buckingham. 4, Tim McCreadie. 5, Billy Moyer. 6, Josh Richards. 7, Scott Bloomquist. 8, Shannon Scott. 9, Will Vaught. 10, Devin Moran. 11, Shannon Babb. 12, Earl Pearson Jr. 13, Rick Eckert. 14, Hudson O'Neal. 15, Kaeden Cornell. 16, RC Whitwell. 17, Jimmy Owens. 18, Billy Moyer Jr. 19, Austin Siebert. 20, Logan Martin. 21, Tyler Erb. 22, Mitch McGrath. 23, Payton Looney. 24, Tony Jackson Jr. 25, Kyle Bronson. 26, Terry Phillips. 27, Michael Norris. 28, Austin Rettig

B Main 1 - 1, Josh Richards. 2, Earl Pearson Jr. 3, Payton Looney. 4, Billy Moyer Jr. 5, Cody Laney. 6, Hudson O'Neal. 7, Mason Oberkramer. 8, Jon Binning. 9, Jason Sivils. 10, Michael Norris.

B Main 2 - 1, Austin Rettig. 2, Devin Moran. 3, Terry Phillips. 4, Stormy Scott. 5, Logan Martin. 6, Raymond Merrill. 7, Joey Moriarty. 8, Al Humphrey. 9, Mitchel McGrath. 10, Joseph Gorby. 11, Reid Millard.

Heat 1 - 1, Jonathan Davenport. 2, Rick Eckert. 3, Shanon Buckingham. 4, Tony Jackson Jr. 5, Hudson O'Neal. 6, Payton Looney. 7, Earl Pearson Jr. 8, Cody Laney. 9, Mason Oberkramer. 10, Jason Sivils.

Heat 2 - 1, Scott Bloomquist. 2, Jimmy Owens. 3, Tyler Erb. 4, Austin Siebert. 5, Josh Richards. 6, Billy Moyer Jr. 7, Jon Binning. 8, Jake Neal. 9, Gavin Landers. 10, Michael Norris.

Heat 3 - 1, Tim McCreadie. 2, Kyle Bronson. 3, Mike Marlar. 4, Kaeden Cornell. 5, Stormy Scott. 6, Raymond Merrill. 7, Terry Phillips. 8, Logan Martin. 9, Joey Moriarty. 10, Reid Millard.

Heat 4 - 1, Shannon Babb. 2, Billy Moyer. 3, Will Vaught. 4, RC Whitwell. 5, Austin Rettig. 6, Devin Moran. 7, Mitch McGrath. 8, Al Humphrey. 9, Joseph Gorby.

O'Reilly Auto Parts Street Stocks

A Feature 1 (30 Laps): 1. 4-Kyle Slader, 22:33.384[1]; 2. 1G-Tony Anglin, 22:34.596[7]; 3. 27-Bob Barnett, 22:36.341[8]; 4. 42-James Flood, 22:36.818[9]; 5. 35-Johnny Coats, 22:37.328[4]; 6. 27OTT-Toby Ott, 22:37.985[3]; 7. 45-Aaron Poe, 22:38.589[5]; 8. 7-Brett Wood, 22:41.778[17]; 9. 0-Jay Lamons, 22:41.838[18]; 10. 10-Marc Carter, 22:42.263[16]; 11. 9-Carmon Vincent, 22:43.352[15]; 12. 5-Austin Vincent, 22:43.467[20]; 13. 12V-Cody Frazon, 22:44.480[14]; 14. 68-Dean Wille, 22:44.659[6]; 15. 28K-Chris Kircher, 22:46.837[10]; 16. 11-Brad Gideon, 22:49.611[13]; 17. 96-Dalton Imhoff, 22:50.691[11]; 18. 21W-Ted Welschmeyer, 22:51.127[12]; 19. 60-Jimmy Ngo, 22:52.043[23]; 20. 7X-John Scott, 22:48.266[22]; 21. 73-Francisco Escamila, 22:50.448[19]; 22. 3-Josh Halbrook, 22:51.466[21]; 23. (DNF) 44S-Steve Scott, 21:09.997[24]; 24. (DNF) 117-Mike Striegel, 16:18.975[2]

B Feature 1 (12 Laps): 1. 7-Brett Wood, 11:23.315[1]; 2. 0-Jay Lamons, 11:23.945[4]; 3. 73-Francisco Escamila, 11:26.264[2]; 4. 5-Austin Vincent, 11:26.596[6]; 5. 3-Josh Halbrook, 11:27.242[3]; 6. 7X-John Scott, 11:28.316[8]; 7. 60-Jimmy Ngo, 11:28.737[13]; 8. 44S-Steve Scott, 11:29.435[7]; 9. 89-Mark Mullins, 11:29.441[9]; 10. 05G-Grayson McKiney, 11:29.781[11]; 11. 86B-Sammy Young Jr, 11:31.036[5]; 12. 93D-Josh Dugan, 11:31.496[12]; 13. 1C-Josh Crump, 11:32.598[14]; 14. (DNF) 2-Colton Bourland, 07:57.552[16]; (DNS) 25XXX-Jay Prevete, 07:57.552; (DNS) 1D-Daniel Deason, 07:57.552

Heat 1 (8 Laps): 1. 27OTT-Toby Ott, 07:23.032[1]; 2. 42-James Flood, 07:24.636[2]; 3. 45-Aaron Poe, 07:25.503[7]; 4. 9-Carmon Vincent, 07:26.290[3]; 5. 3-Josh Halbrook, 07:26.400[4]; 6. 44S-Steve Scott, 07:27.811[5]; 7. 25XXX-Jay Prevete, 07:29.653[8]; 8. (DNF) 1C-Josh Crump, 04:56.413[6]

Heat 2 (8 Laps): 1. 4-Kyle Slader, 03:14.436[6]; 2. 1G-Tony Anglin, 03:15.382[3]; 3. 68-Dean Wille, 03:15.721[7]; 4. 12V-Cody Frazon, 03:18.148[1]; 5. 0-Jay Lamons, 03:19.768[5]; 6. 86B-Sammy Young Jr, 03:24.697[2]; 7. 2-Colton Bourland, 03:11.644[8]; (DNS) 1D-Daniel Deason, 03:11.644

Heat 3 (8 Laps): 1. 117-Mike Striegel, 03:12.145[4]; 2. 28K-Chris Kircher, 03:16.767[2]; 3. 96-Dalton Imhoff, 03:17.232[1]; 4. 11-Brad Gideon, 03:17.470[5]; 5. 7-Brett Wood, 03:17.832[7]; 6. 5-Austin Vincent, 03:17.842[3]; 7. 05G-Grayson McKiney, 03:20.581[8]; 8. 93D-Josh Dugan, 03:20.581[6]

Heat 4 (8 Laps): 1. 35-Johnny Coats, [1]; 2. 27-Bob Barnett, [3]; 3. 21W-Ted Welschmeyer, [2]; 4. 10-Marc Carter, [4]; 5. 73-Francisco Escamila, [7]; 6. 7X-John Scott, [6]; 7. 89-Mark Mullins, [5]; 8. 60-Jimmy Ngo, [8]

Next up: Big Adventure RV Weekly Racing Series action at Lucas Oil Speedway resumes next Saturday. It will be Veterans and Military Appreciation Night Presented by KOLR/KRBK as all Veterans and Military Personnel with ID will be admitted FREE.

The Ozark Golf Cars USRA B Mods will be the featured class, running a 25-lap, $750-to-win main event. The Warsaw Auto Marine & RV ULMA Late Models, Pitts Homes USRA Modifieds and O'Reilly Auto Parts Street Stocks also will be in action. Gates open at 4 p.m. with hot laps at 6:30 and racing at 7:05.

For questions about tickets or camping for any event at Lucas Oil Speedway, contact Admissions Director Nichole McMillan at (417) 282-5984 or via email at Nichole@LucasOilSpeedway.com.

Complete Lucas Oil Speedway event information, archived race recaps, previews and driver features, along with ticket information and 2019 schedule can be found by visiting http://www.LucasOilSpeedway.com.

Lucas Oil Speedway is located at Highways 83 and 54 in Wheatland, Missouri. A campground with shower and bathroom facilities is also available. With its entrance located just outside the pit gate this sprawling scenic camping facility will continue to enhance the racing experience at the Diamond of Dirt Tracks.

Click http://www.LucasOilSpeedway.com for more information and detailed directions to the speedway or call the Track Hotline at (417) 282-5984.

In addition, fans can get social with Lucas Oil Speedway by following @LucasSpeedway on Twitter, clicking "Like" at http://www.facebook.com/LucasOilSpeedway and on http://www.youtube.com/LucasOilSpeedway

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