Davenport. How is he that good?

[t501tx]

" Race Sucked " = your guy didn't win
" No moisture " = same track conditions for everyone, figure it out
" Cheating " = always the same excuse when someone dominates
" $$$ " = at that level everyone has no budget issues

I heard the same crap with Donnie Schatz when he was dominating sprint car racing.

[TBSprintFan]

" Race Sucked " = your guy didn't win
" No moisture " = same track conditions for everyone, figure it out
" Cheating " = always the same excuse when someone dominates
" $$$ " = at that level everyone has no budget issues

I heard the same crap with Donnie Schatz when he was dominating sprint car racing.

Exactly and like another poster said, sit back and watch the show, we are witnessing greatness right now with Davenport and his crew.

[TS FAN]

We are watching greatness of JD and his team. How entertaining it is? Wire to wire week after week?
Its a bit boring. It has nothing to do with favorite driver, it can be boring no matter who is doing it.

[play4kps]

If you think the 49 car operates under the same budget as 95% of the cars there. Your not paying attention. keep cheerleading the death of dirt late model racing.

[MIdlmfan]

Josh Rice works a full-time job and has no hired help I would hardly say money is not an issue for the 11 team

[Pennsboro32]

If you think the 49 car operates under the same budget as 95% of the cars there. Your not paying attention. keep cheerleading the death of dirt late model racing.

Careful, you’ll be labeled a hater. Casual fans can’t grasp the concept that 1 team winning all the money is bad for DLM racing.

[kidrock]

Last year it was Overton, this year it's Davenport. I don't know if the droop rule has played a part in it or not. There are plenty of guys on here that could answer that. I will wait for their answers.

[MasterSbilt_Racer]

Josh Rice works a full-time job and has no hired help I would hardly say money is not an issue for the 11 team

The guy paying the bills buys every part the car needs. His dad is a better crewman than you could likely hire. That poor team dog ain't hunting.

[play4kps]

Pennsboro true! Most people who dont know much about the sport root for winning teams, thats it, they could care less about the weekly racer. thats the direction of the sport. Like t501 said about funding, he has no idea. If he thinks Bowersock, K-rob, Hensley, Dohm, Noonan, Feger, Andrezak, the Carpenters and on and on has the same money as Davenport, Overton, TMac, Rocket house car or the other top funded teams, hes not paying attention. Not to mention all the great local drivers that know they cant compete because of funding, or the expense, or the chance they wreck and cant afford to replace things. This sport was never meant to resemble NASCRAP, but we all know know the 49,76,44 and 39 teams have engineers working for them, they get comped parts that most drivers pay for. What is comes down to, even if a team has the funding, most teams are not going to spend 800,000 to 1.4 million a year to race. Yes, Davenport won a million at Eldora, lets not forget 2nd place was only 50,000 and 8th place was only 7000 dollars. To the people that think this is ok, Dont complain when only 20 to 30 cars start showing up at the Dream and the World. Talk to drivers in the pits, its not fun showing up, knowing you probably wasted your time and money showing up. There is not enough drivers willing to spend 1-2 million a year to race.

[play4kps]

And I dont believe the 49 car is cheating, most teams are not going to hire 4 or 5 engineers for a race team. all Im saying is this sport can not afford to go in this direction. Why do you think so many guys either get out of it or race lower class cars. Dirt late model racing is leaving the weekly driver behind. That is never a good thing.

[kidrock]

Things change and the sport evolves over time. Sometimes good and sometime bad and right now the racing up front is not that good but, it seems like the racing for 4,5,6 and on back have had some decent racing. I'm a fan of dirtying up the car so, it's not so aero dependent.

[billetbirdcage]

Last year it was Overton, this year it's Davenport. I don't know if the droop rule has played a part in it or not. There are plenty of guys on here that could answer that. I will wait for their answers.

One could never say what hurt him without being on the team and knowing what's all going on there.

From an outside looking in perspective:

Overton raced under the droop rule at times when he dominated especially eldora, however the way droop was checked changed from last year and it bite him at the first race and he was DQ'ed. They started measuring droop with the RR off the ground also and he made a change on the RR shock from the heat to feature and didn't think about it's effect with the new rule and got bite by it. He hasn't made that mistake since.

Overton for sure had an aero advantage under the old rule but so did couple other teams, This was why the rule was changed as everyone started figuring out the cheat (not a good word for this but it was a legal bypass to the intent of the rule) a few teams where doing on the droop rule measurement. I can tell you on some cars this was 2.5" more LR deck hieght which is easily 250# more down force on the back of the car.

People also don't know about lots of other things that happen, like having something and they decide it's not illegal by the rules but tell you to not come back with it on the car. There are countless things teams have been told to not comeback with and never made it into the rule book. Generally it only makes it into the rulebook if its something widely known, but come up with something and tech sees it and don't like it before the competition does, its not gonna be in the rule book, its just a verbal ban. Could have something like that happened to him, sure but that's pure speculation.

My 2 cents

[Finnfan25]

Like several have mentioned, historically these things tend to be cyclical. Good teams adjust, great drivers adjust quicker. Heck I'm such an old DLM fan I can remember way back when Darrell Lanigan once dominated WoO for an entire season or two. I swear I didn't make that up, don't laugh.... it really was once DARRELL LANIGAN dominating!

[jensenracing1818]

Like several have mentioned, historically these things tend to be cyclical. Good teams adjust, great drivers adjust quicker. Heck I'm such an old DLM fan I can remember way back when Darrell Lanigan once dominated WoO for an entire season or two. I swear I didn't make that up, don't laugh.... it really was once DARRELL LANIGAN dominating!

if you consider 2009ish-2014 old the rest of us are probably ancient lol but lets be honest the WoO competition really wasn't that great during his couple championships either.

[fastford]

the old man that helped me get started ran a car down here in the 60,s , 70,s and early 80,s that dominated nearly every race they entered down here , he had a cousin that lived in Indy and every winter he would slip off and go visit his cousin that had connections with about every speed shop in Indy , being the center of speed at the time , they were well ahead of us on the learning curve , so he would look at what they were doing and come back home and make these changes to his car and along with a good driver , they flat azz dominated , every one else was racing for 2nd place , he did not have much money but he had skills and could build most every thing himself , those days are long gone , no matter how you look at it , it takes a substantial amount of money to buy todays technology to be competitive in a late model dirt car , period.....

[Barchetta6]

He used to hammer the top. All the time. He races much better now. Drives it straight and doesn’t slide tires. As for equipment, the top 30-40 teams at Eldora had everything they could want. If tracks are smooth and slick expect more of the same.

[MIdlmfan]

The guy paying the bills buys every part the car needs. His dad is a better crewman than you could likely hire. That poor team dog ain't hunting.

And that may be true but after the top half a dozen or so you have to admit it’s a different league. JD says he spends a lot of time watching films and drivers tendencies at different tracks. Josh is working and then working on his car. Not shedding tears for Josh though everybody that is in that top half a dozen came up going through the same thing Josh is having to go through. And to your point having dad Jerry in his back pocket certainly doesn’t hurt the effort!

[Josh Bayko]

Every year there’s a dominant guy, just as it was said above. Two years ago it was Sheppard. Last year it was Overton. This year it’s Davenport. Next year, it’ll likely be someone else. It’s hard to stay on top forever.

For instance, this very type of thread about JD also happened back in 2015. Then his 2016 was less than stellar.

[ZERO25]

Same ole story.........people hate winners!

[dirty-white-boy]

Same ole story.........people hate winners!

Yea genius you are right, everyone hates Bloomer, Moyer, Dale Sr, Gordon, John Force, Larson and and anyone else thats a winner!

When someone is that dominant it just makes people ask why? Just like my post originally asked, what makes him that good over every other team in the sport right now.