LOCUST GROVE, Ark. — It was Jonathan Davenport’s night, winning the COMP Cams Topless 100 Presented by Nutrien Ag Solutions for the first time in his career.
Davenport held off a hard charging Hudson O’Neal and Dale McDowell to win the richest late model race in the history of Batesville Motor Speedway – a $50,000 payday in the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series and COMP Cams Super Dirt Series Presented by Lucas Oil co-sanctioned event.
O’Neal was looking to become the first back-to-back winner in the history of the crown jewel event that began in 1993. He climbed from the 16th starting spot to finish second, 1.120 seconds behind the winner.
McDowell came home in third, with Tim McCreadie finishing fourth, and Brandon Sheppard in his first Topless 100 start since 2015 rounding out the top five finishers.
The win was especially meaningful to the three-time Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series National Champion as his car owners Lance and Darla Landers call Batesville home. It was one year ago when Davenport lost a last-lap shootout with O’Neal who won the race after the two swapped the lead four times on the final lap.
This year history nearly repeated itself as O’Neal and McDowell had climbed to with one-car length of Davenport in the race for the lead when a caution came out with six laps to go in the race. Davenport was able to fight off the two and come home with his first Topless 100 title.
“That was lot closer than I wanted it to be. I guess Hudson [O’Neal] came from way back, so congratulations to him,” Davenport said. “I couldn’t quite run the top as good down there in three and four. I never really went all the way out there. There was a whole lot of flats. I didn’t want to run over a rock and get a flat leading it. I just kept moving around little-by-little. Thanks to Mooney [Starr] and his whole staff here, I mean what a turnaround from last night.”
O’Neal earned a $20,000 payday for second, but for a moment he thought he might make history by winning in back-to-back years.
“I felt like I stood a better chance when we were racing before that caution,” O’Neal said. “Once that caution came out, he has a good clean air car. I knew it was going to be hard and slim to none to get by him unless he would have made a mistake or if I could have put together a couple of good laps who knows. We will take a second from where we started. We have kind of struggled here all weekend and at these types of tracks in general. I feel like we made some good progress here this weekend. We still need to get a little better to start winning these things.”
McDowell, who won the race in 2004, took home $10,000 for third.
“It seems the long runs are better for me. We were able to get to him [Davenport] in traffic, that was the real hope we had, but once the caution came with six laps to go and he got back in the clear it’s just hard to do anything. The track raced awesome. You could race all over it tonight.”
The finish:
Jonathan Davenport, Hudson O’Neal, Dale McDowell, Tim McCreadie, Brandon Sheppard, Jimmy Owens, Spencer Hughes, Garrett Alberson, Earl Pearson Jr., Kyle Beard, Daulton Wilson, Mason Oberkramer, Tyler Erb, B.J. Robinson, Brian Rickman, Ricky Thornton Jr., Garrett Smith, Jared Landers, Stormy Scott, Billy Moyer Jr., David Payne, Ross Robinson, Morgan Bagley, Tyler Stevens.