PORT ROYAL, Pa. — Ending the Port Royal Speedway hot streak of pole-starting Ricky Thornton Jr., second-starting Jonathan Davenport of Blairsville, Ga., got the jump at the outset and dominated all 50 laps of Saturday’s Rumble by the River on the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series.

Davenport ran virtually unchallenged at the half-mile oval for a $50,000 payday, his fifth series triumph of the season and series-leading 97th of his career in taking the checkers 3.126 seconds ahead of Thornton.

The three-time series champion, no longer a tour regular, made light of his status with a quip in victory lane.

“Not too bad for an old washed-up part-timer, I guess,” the 42-year-old Davenport said. “That's what everybody keeps saying I'm retiring or I can't hang because I don't race every week, but they put us in certain situations, we're just as good as anybody in the country.”

Chandler, Ariz.’s Thornton, winner of the four previous Lucas Oil events at Port Royal including Friday’s $10,000 prelim, settled for second with Brandon Overton of Evans, Ga., finishing third. Chris Madden of Gray Court, S.C., and Hudson O’Neal of Martinsville, Ind., rounded out the top five while series points leader Brandon Sheppard of New Berlin, Ill., wasn’t a factor in finishing 12th.

Calling his Double L Motorsports ride “a dream come true to drive,” Davenport knew that getting the jump on Thornton at the green flag was key. He gave himself an A-plus for his performance for winning the race into turn one.

"I guess that start was, what do you call it? A punch in the mouth, I guess?” Davenport said. Running out front by himself most of the way with a handful of cautions meant he didn’t face much trouble from slower cars that would hamper his domination.

"Obviously our car was really good in clean air and I was a little free the whole time, so I would get looser in dirty air,” Davenport said. “But (lapped cars) were running a little bit lower and I would try to move up and just move around. I felt like if we could ever got in a rhythm through the lapped cars, I felt like we could have been OK because they would have slowed everybody else up too, but obviously, it would slowed me up more than them.”

With lapped traffic less of a concern, Davenport’s main focus was getting smooth restarts that kept Thornton behind him.

“It's so slick coming up to this front straightaway. I mean, you're just easing on the throttle just as easy as you can,” the winner said. “Actually, that last restart, I bounced just a little bit off of (turn) four there and I spun the tires for, felt like 10 or 15 foot and I had to throttle back and try to catch back up with it. And I was hoping nobody got a run on me. So I actually entered (turn one) a little bit lower, than what I would have.

"I knew Ricky kept picking the top (for restarts), so I didn't know if he was going to try to ring the cushion and try to get a run down the hill and and slide me getting in (turn) one. That's always in the back of your mind. Obviously, you don't know they're coming until you hear them and see them go by. By that time, you're not really set up for it, and, most of the time they get the lead, but luckily they didn’t and everything worked out for us tonight.”

Thornton knows the cautions didn’t help him, but he’d like to have seen one more caution — just after the initial start. The runner-up felt Davenport jumped the start.

“I was more mad that we didn't have a yellow the first lap,” Thornton said. “I don't know. I’ll have to go back and watch it, but usually when second place arcs out and beats you to the cone and fires way before you, they call it back. But I don't know. Maybe (series owner) Flo needs to hire a couple of guys to watch over in turn four.

"But obviously, J.D. was really good as soon as he got out front. It started to clean up across the middle and then probably by halfway through it started to rubber. So we’ll take second and look forward to my fun week here next week.”

Thornton plotted moves on restart, including after a high-side run in turns one and two after a lap-38 caution that ended up with Thornton’s Koehler Motorsports car nearly getting into the backstretch fence. But those attempts never came to fruition.

“I was going to have to slide him, and hey, his crew guy's on the back straightaway, so the odds are he probably would have blocked me into (turn) three,” Thornton said. “I tried it. Obviously, we wanted to be a little bit better there. I think the, the top was there in (turns) one and two) but not really three and four, so I figured I'd probably just do the smart thing and salvage a second instead of trying to win it and really tear everything up.”

Overton improved two positions to finish third on a car with “six shocks on this thing and we changed every one of them before the feature.”

“We had a decent weekend,” Overton added.  “We struggled a little bit last night and to come out of here on the podium, we'll take it.”

Notes: Jonathan Davenport previously won the event Aug. 24, 2024. … He won his first feature since June 20 in Midwest LateModel Racing Association action in Salina, Okla. … Davenport won his first race with a Vic Hill Racing Engine (in his third start with the powerplant). … “I’ve gotta say the Vic Hill motor ran really good,” Davenport said. “We had to tune on it a little bit for what I like, but I think we're getting a little bit better with it. Ain't nothing wrong with all of our other stuff. It was just, time to try something, something different, and I'm sure next week we might have a Clements or Cornett in. They all run phenomenal.” … Five cautions slowed the 50-lapper, the first for on the fourth lap when third-running Hayes Mattern smashed the turn-two wall. ... Kenny Moreland slowed on the seventh lap. ... On the 22nd lap, Kyle Strickler slowed. ... Debris drew a lap-34 yellow. ... On the 38th lap, Rick Eckert slowed in turn two. ... The 33-minute feature concluded at 10:07 p.m. ... Gregg Satterlee started and parked in the feature a faulty head gasket. ... Cory Lawler and Austin Berry both scratched after rear end issues in hot laps.