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Only Kryptonite is stopping Superman at Eldora Speedway | Daily 10-17-2023

Coming up, talking through Jonathan Davenport's 2023 season and why he's the heavy favorite headed to Eldora. Plus, Donny Schatz hasn't given up yet, the Outlaws add to Devil's Bowl purse, and Fremont Speedway makes a change. Let's go!

It's Tuesday, October 17th, I'm Justin Fiedler. This is DIRTRACKR Daily.

The final week of racing at Eldora Speedway for 2023 is here, and it wouldn't be Eldora if it wasn't big. The $100,000 to win Dirt Track World Championship is on tap Saturday, along with the Lucas title, plus racing for a bunch of other divisions including modifieds, super stocks, and steel block late models. For you competitors and fans that are going to be in town, you'll need to eat all week and I've got the place for you. Located just six miles down highway 118 from the race track is the Whistle Stop Bar and Grill. It's located right on main street in Ansonia, Ohio, and they've got you covered for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Besides being all about good food and drink, the Whistle Stop is also all about some dirt racing. And not just saying they are, but actually putting their money where their mouth is. They've done partnerships with Sheldon and Jac Haudenschild, Rico Abreu, Chris Windom, Cap Henry, the Dirt Nerds podcast, Eldora itself, and the Whistle Stop has become a regular supporter of this show. On top of their in-house experience, you can also order online at whistlebarandgrill.com and take it back to the track with you. So if you want to support those that support racing, grab some friends and make the trip right down the road to The Whistle Stop, Ohio's favorite train depot. If you stop in, make sure to tell them DIRTRACKR sent you.

I want to start your Tuesday off with some Donny Schatz numbers. He's coming off the win over this past weekend at Lakeside, but barring some sort of insane finish to the season, he'll end up with his worst Outlaw run in more than 20 years. Schatz is currently sixth in the standings, and the last time he finished outside the top five by year's end, was 2002. For other drivers, Schatz's 2023 numbers are very strong. But not for the ten time champion. The real glaring stat for the TSR 15 in 2023 is their qualifying average. Through 68 races, their time trial average position is just 11.58, which trails eight of the other Outlaw full timers. It's tough to win and run up front when you start the night in a hole. But you know what Donny Schatz is still really good at, even amidst a difficult season? Passing race cars. And a lot of them. Schatz leads the series in feature/plus minus for the year at +140, which means on average he's moving up more than two spots per night from the start of the race. Nobody else is even in the triple digits. And if you want to say, oh, it's just because he's starting further down the field, consider this. Of the seven seasons I have data for, Schatz has led the Outlaws in feature plus minus in four of them. The other three years he was second twice and fourth once. Things might not be right when it comes to raw pace right off the truck in qualifying, but Schatz's race craft is as good as it's ever been. Something else to point out here is even after qualifying not great, Schatz has maximized his heat races to try and set his team up better for later in the night. Not only does he lead feature plus minus, he also leads heat plus minus. Things haven't gone great for that team this season, and who knows what the future holds for Schatz as rumors run rampant, but it doesn't appear that the slip in performance is because of lack of effort.

All week in advance of the Dirt Track World Championship we are spotlighting the four Lucas chase finalists. Yesterday we did Devin Moran, and today we'll talk Jonathan Davenport. He was back full time this season with Lucas after a year away picking and choosing a schedule that turned out to be pretty damn lucrative. His Lance Landers' owned team decided to come back in 2023 because of the opportunity the chase format provided with the finale coming at probably Davenport's best race track. They ended up the regular season in third in the final rundown, and it wasn't always easy this year. JD has spent the season getting comfortable with new crew chief Cory Fostvedt after Jason Durham departed the team after 2022. The 49 was hot out of the gates, winning three of six nights at the Wild West Shootout in January, but from there the early part of the season was not quite what we'd come to expect from this group. They did win a Lucas race at Ocala, and an MLRA show at Wheatland in April, but Davenport was outside the Lucas top four in the spring, and had four straight finishes of 12th or worse from Fairbury to 34 Raceway. The season flipped though in a big way at the Show-Me 100 weekend late in May. Davenport won both prelim nights and led a lot of the 100 lapper. And that kicked off a stretch of 27 top tens in 28 Lucas features, where Davenport's worst finish was an 11th. He won six of those races, and was top five 22 times. That easily pushed him up the standings and into that top four. Heading into this weekend, the 49 has raced 91 times already, has 13 wins and 71 top tens. As for Eldora this year, Davenport didn't leave empty handed at either the World or the Dream. In June he led 71 of 100 laps to score the $129,000 payday, and just a little over a month ago he led 40 laps at the World before ultimately settling for second behind Hudson O'Neal. Regardless of what we've seen this year from Ricky Thornton Jr., and O'Neal taking the globe, Davenport has to be the betting favorite for the Dirt Track World Championship and also the Lucas title. His last nine crown jewel finishes at Eldora go like this: second, first, first, fourth, first, first, fifth, fourth, seventh. So that's four wins in nine races and an average feature finish of 2.89. Thanks to his comments through the year, we know Davenport isn't super thrilled about being stuck to a touring schedule, but that team did exactly what they came to do. Rack up some big wins, and go to Eldora with their shot. Just like we did for Moran yesterday, drop your thoughts below on what you think JD will do come Saturday night.

Before we move on, thanks for 24,000 YouTube subscribers. We crossed that number last night. As of me writing this, our 2023 goal is now just 982 subscribers away.

A big storyline this week around the World of Outlaws sprint cars is the end for Devil's Bowl Speedway. We talked back on Sunday about the impending sale and closure of the historic track, and Friday and Saturday night are the final two races that will be held there. Devil's Bowl was the site of the first ever World of Outlaws show way back in 1978, which was won by Jimmy Boyd. Ted Johnson worked with Lanny Edwards to make that happen, and now Edwards' son and current Devil's Bowl promoter Lanny Ross has made the decision to end the run of the track. To make the end bigger, World Racing Group has added more than $30,000 to the weekend's purse, with Friday now being $12,000 to win, and Saturday being bumped to more than $20,000 to win. As a nod to the beginning, Saturday is also paying $1,978 to start. This will also be an emotional weekend for WRG CEO Brian Carter, as he grew up not far from Devil's Bowl, and started going to races there as a kid. He was also a major driving force in bringing the Outlaws back to Devil's Bowl in 2014. The track was a regular stop for the series throughout it's history, but it fell off the schedule after 2003. Since 2014 though under Carter's watch, Devil's Bowl has been an Outlaw stop every year. Hopefully the fans and competitors will show out this weekend.

In some other race track news today, Fremont Speedway will have a new slash old promoter starting immediately. Rich Farmer and his wife Shelly, who previously ran the track, are back in control starting with the swap meet on October 28th. Farmer gave up running the track after the 2018 season, but has signed a new five year deal to operate one of the Ohio weekly staples. Besides running Fremont, Farmer also owns several area NAPA stores, and has campaigned his own sprint cars with drivers like Zeth Sabo, Cole Macedo, and Cap Henry in recent years. It sounds like this move didn't come without some drama though, which isn't uncommon when it comes to race tracks and fair boards. The reaction on social media today to this move has been mostly positive, although I have seen one post in particular on the other side. It wouldn't be dirt racing though without some drama.

That's it for today's Daily. Make sure to stop by dirtrackr.com today and see the streaming schedule and the latest news from around the sport.

Hope you guys have a great Tuesday out there, we'll see you back here tomorrow.