During his two championship seasons with the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series, Davenport scored 21 victories with the tour. His victory total this year, counting wins with other sanctioning bodies, totaled 17. Among them was a victory in the annual World 100 at Ohio’s Eldora Speedway, worth $52,000 to the 36-year-old Georgia native.
“I’ve finally come into my prime I think,” said Davenport, who earned his first Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series title in 2015 while working with Kevin Rumley. “You never can learn too much with all the changing track conditions and now the cars are constantly changing. You can’t replace experience with anything. Most of the time the older crowd is generally the best, especially in the longer races because you’ve been there before.”
Davenport landed at Double L Motorsports after a tumultuous 2017 season that saw him start the year driving the Barry Wright Race Cars house car. He left that team midway through the schedule, landing a ride with owner and driver G.R. Smith that resulted in victories in the World 100 and Hillbilly Hundred.
Fast-forward to 2018 and things were very different for Davenport. With Landers’ support, Davenport marched to his second Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series championship thanks to nine wins. He scored 13 wins with various sanctioning bodies during the 2018 season.
“He is definitely an awesome person and he is a successful businessman,” Davenport said about Landers. “Everything he touches is usually pretty good. His dealerships are his main focus. He’s got just about every car manufacturer dealership you can get.
“My crew chief that I have now, Jason Durham, he went to work for Lance after me and him split ways after 2013. Everything just ties back into a big circle.”
Davenport has joined Sheppard at the top of the dirt late model world. He says part of the reason he and the Double L Motorsports team have been so good these last two seasons is the consistency of working with the same group of people and the same equipment each year, something Davenport hasn’t been able to do regularly in the past.
Familiarity with his cars and the people working on them have helped Davenport.
“My crew chief I’ve had now for the last two years (Durham), I had him before in 2013,” Davenport explained. “We had Kevin Rumley last year and everybody knows he was my crew chief for ’14 and ’15. He’s not here this year, but he’s still helping with Longhorn (Chassis) and he’s still helping a little bit with the cars.
“It’s just about getting more experience in the same situation; not switching rides, not switching combinations or cars,” Davenport added. “It’s kind of like Scott Bloomquist. He’s been in the same cars and the same motor concept for so many years. It’s not the first or second time he’s going to the race track with that situation. It’s been 10 or 11 times.”
Davenport claims knowing he has a chance to win no matter where he races has made his years of hard work worth it.
“All the hard work and years of sacrifice is finally starting to pay off,” he said. “By now if I couldn’t go win the big races or be competitive each week, I would have to find something else to do because this is the way I feed my family and how I provide for myself.
“If I’m going out there struggling to make the races every week and having to use provisionals or can’t make the big races without needing provisionals, then I’d have to go sell cars or do something different.”
For Sheppard, the success he has enjoyed wheeling the Rocket house car hasn’t changed his approach to life or racing.
“I just try to stay humble,” he said. “I’m very grateful for the opportunities that I’ve been given through my career. Driving the Rocket house car is definitely one of the greater ones for sure.
“At the end of the day, I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for my family-owned equipment getting me there and my dad and my grandpa for bringing me up and teaching me everything that they know and going out on a limb to get me a racing career,” Sheppard noted. “I made the most of it with the time I had with their stuff.
“I’ve been so blessed. I’m definitely grateful for everything I’ve done. I can’t remember the last year I’ve won less than 10 races. I’ve just been really blessed with my career. It’s been phenomenal.”
At 26 and 36 years old, respectively, Sheppard and Davenport have a lot of years left in racing. The odds are good that they’ll be beating the competition — and each other — for a very long time to come.