Inside Dirt Late Model Racing
Column: New dynamics buoy Madden's program
Chris Madden was closing up the door of his Wells Motorsports team’s trailer after finishing fourth in Saturday’s Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series-sanctioned Rumble by the River finale at Port Royal (Pa.) Speedway. At the same time, he was talking about what has been a new, and most enjoyable, aspect of his racing this season: having his 19-year-old son, Avery, working and traveling alongside him.
“He’s been to the races,” Madden said, “but he’s never been a crew guy.”
The father-son dynamic has created a fresh outlook for the 51-year-old Madden, who just over two years ago announced his intention to retire from full-time Dirt Late Model competition at the end of the 2024 campaign. He hasn’t really done that, though. Madden did liquidate his own racing program, but last year he still remained quite active making 37 starts driving for G.R. Smith and Kale Green. He’s racing even more this season as the Infinity Chassis house car pilot.
It’s not like Madden is a reborn racer, a guy in the midst of a second act with his career. But the accomplished veteran from Gray Court, S.C., certainly finds himself in a position that he didn’t expect as 2026 winds down. He can’t claim that he envisioned racing with his son by his side when, in June ’24, he went public with his decision to become a driver who might run just a handful of events for a few more years.
“I never thought he would care anything about it … especially the work part,” Madden said of his son. “It’s a lot of work, man. It’s hard work, a lot of hours.”
Madden noted that his son has attended plenty of races over the years and been his biggest fan, but, as Avery grew up, he became more deeply involved playing baseball for his school and summer league teams. He was too busy with his athletic pursuits to burrow himself fully into his father’s racing. Since graduating from high school last year, however, Avery has stopped playing organized baseball, “so he’s picked up on this,” Madden said, “and we’ll see what happens.”
Avery has become his father’s right-hand man. With no full-time crew member currently on the payroll for Madden’s David Wells-owned team, it’s father and son doing the hard lifting on a daily basis and hitting the road together for whatever races Madden decides to enter.
“He’s in the shop with me all the time, every day,” Madden said. “He’s doing a really good job. He’s the tire guy. He’s very particular (with tire prep), just like his dad. He knows he’s got a good teacher, and if it ain’t right I’m gonna catch it.”
Madden said he has “to get some key factors worked on and some people in place to keep everything going” at a high level into the future with the fledgling Infinity house car effort; he’s won three times this season, including a World of Outlaws Late Model Series feature on Jan. 22 at Volusia Speedway Park in Barberville, Fla., and has 17 top-five finishes in 39 starts, but he’s experienced frustrations as well (notably DNQs at the Dream and Silver Dollar Nationals). Having his son around all the time, however, has made ’26 special regardless of the results.
“I mean, it is fun,” Madden said with a smile.
Avery’s presence, though, isn’t the only surprising part of Madden’s 2026 racing. He revealed another when, after locking up his trailer at Port Royal, he was asked if his son also puts in time as the driver of the hauler.
“No,” Madden said. “But J.D. does sometimes. He might tonight.”
Madden was referring to Jonathan Davenport, the winner of Port Royal’s $50,000 Rumble by the River prize. Parked alongside each other in the pit area, Madden was waiting for Davenport to take a shower and change into street clothes in his Double L Motorsports rig and then hop into his truck to ride home together.
“We joked that whichever one of us finished higher tonight had to drive home,” Madden said with a laugh.
While Davenport is a native of Blairsville, Ga., he now lives in Belton, S.C., about 25 minutes from Madden’s residence, so it makes sense that he’d catch a ride with Madden while his own crew headed back to the team’s shop in Batesville, Ark. But the connection goes even further because Madden’s hauler would be going straight to Davenport’s house — for much of this season, Madden has been working out of a shop on Davenport’s property.
Davenport and Madden becoming close away from the track? This would be seem to be the oddest of odd couples to pair up. Both drivers concede that they’ve have their share of run-ins over the years, which shouldn’t be surprising because Davenport, who at 42 is nine years younger than Madden, began coming upon the Southeast’s Dirt Late Model scene when Madden was already an established regional star. Dustups between a hungry, aggressive newcomer and the big-winning veteran were inevitable.
“There was a point when we really hated each other. Probably still did until a few years ago,” Davenport said with a snicker. “Our families have gotten in a fight at the racetrack. That’s how bad it was at one point.”
But both racers have mellowed in recent years and become friendly.
“Everything goes in a circle,” Davenport said. “Everybody matures, you put stuff behind you, move on. I think that’s what we done.”
Their relationship grew to the point that earlier this year, when Madden asked Davenport if he knew of available shop space in their area where he could house his Infinity house car equipment because he had already sold his garage, Davenport offered up his own building. Davenport had already started construction of a shop alongside his home on the Dirty Dollar Ranch he operates with his wife Rachel and Madden’s need for a place to work “kind of made me get the shop finished.”
Davenport said he had his garage built “just like I would want it for a race car shop,” and he wasn’t going to let “just anybody use it.” He would only turn it over to a racer he knew wouldn’t make a mess of the place, “scratch up the floors and stuff like that,” and he knew Madden fit the profile.
“He’s psycho like me with cleanliness,” Davenport said of Madden. “He keeps the shop just as tidy and orderly as I would.”
And so now Davenport finds himself hosting Madden, bringing them even closer together. They go out to eat lunch sometimes. Davenport joins Madden to ride to or from a track when the timing works out. Their sons — Davenport’s boy, Blane, is 13 — have even developed a big brother-little brother connection.
“Avery has always been buddies with Blane,” Davenport said. “He’s older and kind of looked out for him at the track. Really, I think it was the kids who prevented me and Chris from killing each other at one point because they were friendly with each other.”
Davenport’s merchandise director, Jay Hunt, remarked that “it’s kind of funny” these days to hear Davenport and Madden talking to work out details of Avery taking Blane out on a boat to go fishing. It’s part of their new normal, one that doesn’t dwell on the past battles when they were bitter rivals.
“We don’t even really talk about racing,” Madden said, responding to a question about their conversations going down the road. “We talk about just about anything but racing.”
Davenport even felt enough of a rapport with Madden to welcome him to his shop with a prank.
“I wanted to play a little game with him when he moved in — I wanted to put the Million check up on the wall so he’d see it,” Davenport said, referring to the 2022 Eldora Million that he won over Madden, who finished second after his late bid to overtake J.D. fell short. “It wasn’t (at the shop) because it’s in Batesville, but Rachel did find a Dream check (from 2023) when Chris finished second so he got to see that.”
Davenport has another light-hearted reaction to Madden working out of his shop: “Rachel and I, we joke that his car is the Dirty Dollar Ranch house car now.”
It’s likely that Davenport will ride to Eldora Speedway in Rossburg, Ohio, for next week’s World 100 with Madden, a trip during which Madden might hope that Davenport’s Eldora magic rubs off on him. Davenport, of course, has captured 11 Eldora majors, including five World 100s, and Madden has won none despite entering the crown jewels there over a longer period of time than Davenport.
Madden’s frustrating pursuit of Eldora glory has been well documented. He’s started the World 100 finale 18 times but has a career-best finish of third in 2022 (and only one other top-five, a fifth in ’19). His 18 Dream feature appearances are topped by three consecutive runner-up finishes from 2021-23. He finished second in 2022’s Eldora Million and was the runner-up to Bobby Pierce of Oakwood, Ill., in last October’s Dirt Track World Championship.
Yes, Madden has reached Eldora’s winner’s stage in crown jewel preliminary action — Dream semifeatures in 2018 and ’22 — but his penchant for Eldora near-misses show through there as well. He’s finished second nine times in prelim features, including four at the Dream (2013, twice in ’17, ’19), four at the World 100 (2017, ’18, ’19, ’25) and once at the Million.
Can this year’s World 100 — offering a record-high $100,000 first-place payoff — finally be Madden’s breakthrough? He’s sick of answering that question leading up to Eldora crown jewels, but he’s entering the weekend with a good feeling after registering a pair of fourth-place finishes at Port Royal, a sprawling, high-speed track that can provide a worthy tuneup for the half-mile Eldora oval.
“We’ve come a long way here in two weeks,” Madden said. “There’s some changes in our program that we made — we changed shock companies, did some other things — and we got a really good piece going to Eldora now.”
June’s Dream was “a total disaster” for Madden, who had a crew member fall sick among other struggles that left him a non-qualifier for the 100-lap finale for the first time in five years and just the fifth time in his 23 career attempts at the event. That weekend was just a “writeoff” for Madden, who returns to Eldora pleased with what he showed at Port Royal.
“I feel confident about what we got going on,” he said. “I feel really good about going into (Eldora) this time.”
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