ROSSBURG, OH — June 9, 2021 — Two of the winningest drivers on today’s Dirt Late Model circuit wrote yet another chapter in their huge book of 2021 success stories Wednesday night at Eldora Speedway.
Brandon Overton and Jonathan Davenport hit over the 74-count DIRTcar Late Model area by scoring victories from the 27th Dirt Late Model Dream twin-25s, putting themselves in great position for a chance at the $127,000 top prize in Thursday’s finale.
Under the Every Lap Matters format, every motorist scored points to their endings in the Heat Races and Features, which will be utilized to set Thursday’s Heat Race lineups. Both Overton and Davenport won their Heat Races, which will set them atop the standings coming into the big show.
Davenport’s son summoned the inversion wheel in Victory Lane after his Feature to ascertain the number of positions inverted in Thursday’s Heats and landed on a’2,’ which will essentially flip the front-row starters for each Heat Race.
In motorsports, catching an opponent and passing them are two different things. Brandon Overton did Wednesday night en route to his $10,000 success.
Overton, of Evans, GA, jetted out to third party out of his fourth place on the starting grid and made a beeline to the lead right out of the gate. Forced to chase Kyle Bronson, Overton looked low on his orange #40B and forced the movement for second on him using a power transfer to the inside as they completed Lap 12.
A quick warning came only one lap later and erased the small gap polesitter Stormy Scott had placed between he and the others. However, the restart almost cost Overton dearly as he and Scott touched ever so slightly in Turn 1.
“That restart down there — I had it, such as at the flag stand we were nose-to-nose, and I was like’I am gonna go in there,””’ Overton said. “And I thought about it until I let off and was like’he’s gonna come in here with me because he wants to win bad.’ So, I just lifted.”
But despite Scott’s vision to receive his first win at Eldora, it seemed that it just wasn’t meant to be Wednesday night. While he Overton battled for several laps outside front, Scott’s reign came to an end because he got a little too high on entrance getting into Turn 1 on Lap 22 and caught the fluff sitting alongside the wall, yanking him eventually to a halt to bring out the yellow.
Overton had a big run on him lined up for many laps and then pulled the trigger right on that exact same lap.
“I went in there and that I did not see him, and I was like’dang, I have to’ve cleared him with a mile’
Going back to green, it was Overton into the end, marking his fourth career Eldora crown jewel prelim victory in the last four years.
“[That is] a brand new car — first night on it. We set the brakes inside once I was hot lapping, and it was really excellent. Hats off to everybody at Longhorn and Wells [Motorsports] — the item was great,” Overton said.
