ROSSBURG, Ohio — A chink in Jonathan Davenport’s thick Eldora Speedway armor appeared to have developed. Perhaps, just perhaps, the master of the famed half-mile oval was off his game.

Yet after Davenport drew attention Friday by turning the 12th-fastest lap in the first qualifying group for Carl Short’s 44th General Tire Dirt Track World Champions presented by ARP — the worst of the Big Four drivers contesting the Big River Steel Chase for the Championship — he quickly set things right. He glided to victory from the fourth starting spot in Heat 5, thrusting himself back to his usual favorite’s status at the Big E come the running of Saturday’s 100-lap, $100,000-to-win feature.

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Davenport, 40, of Blairsville, Ga., fell decidedly short of his desire to earn 10 potentially critical bonus points for setting a group fast time in the final Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series event of the season, but he’ll start fifth in the DTWC headliner. That’s on the inside row behind two of his Chase rivals — the polesitting (and group fast-timer) Tim McCreadie of Watertown, N.Y., and points leader Ricky Thornton Jr. of Chandler, Ariz. — and well ahead of the 18th-starting Devin Moran of Dresden, Ohio, who is tied for second in the standings with Davenport, 50 points behind Thornton.

So even though Davenport’s storied 2021-vintage Longhorn Chassis he calls “Eldora” was so off kilter during time trials that he said it was “the worst I’ve ever felt here with that car qualifying or racing or whatever,” he’s still positioned quite nicely to pursue his fourth career Lucas Oil Series title and 10th career crown jewel triumph at Eldora.

Davenport’s biggest remaining problem? Thornton is sitting pretty for the century grind as well.

The 34-year-old Thornton won Friday’s second heat, placing him third in the DTWC lineup. He knows he will clinch his first-ever Lucas Oil Series crown and the $200,000 prize that goes with it by finishing sixth even if Davenport or Moran wins the DTWC, and his confidence level is high after his strong opening night in his Koehler Motorsports Longhorn machine.

“I felt really good,” Thornton said. “We had a little different package from what we ran the last time we were here (a dismal 20th-place finish in last month’s World 100). We qualified really good, felt really good in my heat race. Hopefully that translates into a lot of success tomorrow.”

Thornton is certainly in the driver’s seat. Just stay in the top five and the title is his — a fact he acknowledged by noting that he’ll “sleep great” because he has more margin for error than he did in last year’s one-race, best-finish-wins playoff for the Lucas Oil Series championship at Eldora. He just is focused on avoiding the title-breaking fate he brought on himself one year ago.

“For me, it feels like no pressure,” said Thornton, who owns the first series tiebreaker (most wins in points races this season) if he ends up deadlocked with Davenport or Moran. “The hardest part about last year was that it was my own doing. I just put myself in a bad spot and I ran into Jimmy (Owens early in the feature) and killed the whole right front (suspension). The crazy part is, it wasn’t that hard of a hit. It just caught right to break the shock, and then driving around the racetrack it killed the lower (control arm) and everything else, where usually it would’ve been just a quick two-minute shock-on, shock-off deal (but became a repair job costing him multiple laps).

“We obviously want to win (the championship) for (team owners) Bobby and Jessica (Koehler), but if for some crazy reason it doesn’t happen, we’re still very fortunate to do what we get to do. Hopefully we can have a smooth night, run top six and seal the deal.”

VIDEO: Watch Friday's press conference with the Big Four Chase for the Championship drivers.

Davenport is primed, though, to make life as difficult as possible for Thornton. He would seem to have gotten all his rare Eldora struggles out of the way on Friday.

The qualifying program was strangely rough on Davenport, who sensed something was off as soon as he began the night.

“It started when I got in the car for hot laps,” Davenport said. “My brake pedal was really soft, and I was like, ‘That’s weird, because I just run this thing at Pittsburgh (a $50,000 victory in Oct. 5’s Pittsburgher finale) and everything was fine.’ Me and (crew chief) Cory(Fosvedt) talked about a few things, went out, and I went into turn three … the way I hot lap here, the way I do my deal, like, I couldn’t, because my brake pedal went plum to the floor. I almost hit the outside wall in three and four.

“So then I’m like, Well, I don’t know if it’s how I’m not driving the track or if it’s that rough. Then I go back (to the pits) and I’m looking at (lap) times and (the surface) don’t really look that rough, and I’m never parked down here (at the turn-two end of the infield) so I go up there and watch the Steel Blocks qualify and I’m like, Well, it’s not that rough.’ So I said, ‘Well maybe they moved up the racetrack.’

“I just told Cory, ‘Everything was so bad, we had tire vibration like crazy, and I didn’t have no brakes, so I’m gonna go back to the notebook and I’m just gonna do whatever it says (for a time-trials setup).’”

There was no relief for Davenport as he turned a disappointing qualifying lap.

“We qualified and we was just terrible,” Davenport said. “We was bottoming out, still had tire shake, so then we came in, and I didn’t have no brake … like, I had a hard pedal, but the brake wouldn’t turn me. We changed brakes, we changed all four tires and wheels again, and I adjusted to the track being rough (for the heat).”

That’s where Davenport came alive with some slick moves to reach the front. He still had some problems, though, from an opening-lap miscalculation to mechanical trouble later.

“On the start of the race they kind of cheated everybody to the bottom there, so I got a really good start on the outside,” Davenport said. “I mean, I’m starting behind Josh Rice — he’s going to the cushion — so I could drive up to his door and I don’t think he knows I’m there, so I let off. He enters, like, not in the top, but just enough to where I kind of could be below his wake of air, and then as I float to the top I’m thinking he’s gonna go to the top. Well, he slows up and turns to the bottom, and that lifts my nose up. It was totally opposite in my mind what I thought was gonna happen at the start of the race.

“I come out fifth there, and luckily, I got a good run through three and four when I crossed back under Hudson (O’Neal), slid him and Nick (Hoffman) down here (in one and two) and that got us to third. We ran a couple laps there and we had a caution. As soon as the caution come out they wanted us to get lined up to go right back green, and I thought I had a left-front flat because with the caster in these cars they turn pretty easy going slow going left, but turning back right, it was hard to turn.”

Davenport recalled that heading to the restart Ethan Dotson of Bakersfield, Calif., was leading and Rice, who was second, picked the bottom for the Delaware double-file restart, leaving J.D. with the top lane.

“I got a pretty good start and (Rice) did too, but as soon as Ethan came up I just timed it so I could cut under him and I slid him there in turn one (to grab the lead),” Davenport said. “But, I thought I had a left-front tire going flat, so whatever I did, I made sure that I was really hard on the right sides so I wouldn’t go in the corner straight and bottom out. 

“It wasn’t flat. Even in my (postrace) interview I thought it was flat, but we wasn’t bouncing the nose, like the flopper wasn’t bouncing, so when we went to tech Cory grabbed ahold of the (steering) wheel and he’s like, ‘Oh, that’s real nice.’ Anyway, I didn’t have no power steering. That’s what the problem was.”

The loss of power steering was obviously concerning to Davenport. Nevertheless, the timing of the malfunction couldn’t have been better.

“We’ll just change racks tomorrow and we’ll change the pump,” Davenport said. “Luckily it happened on lap five of the heat race and not lap five of the feature. I’ve been through that before here. I don’t know if I could last 100 laps here without power steering.”

While Davenport heads toward the green flag in the 100-lapper with his typical Eldora confidence, Moran finds himself in an entirely different frame of mind. The 30-year-old was shaking his head after timing ninth-fastest in his qualifying group and finishing a quiet third in his heat.

“Just the same as last week — I don’t know, we just don’t have speed,” Moran said, recalling his failure to crack the top five in the previous week’s Jackson 100 doubleheader at Brownstown (Ind.) Speedway that dropped him from leading the standings by 10 points to tied for second with Davenport. “We just gotta work on the car a little bit. We’re gonna be starting deep tomorrow so we’ll see what we can do.

“Hey, it’s part of the sport we love. We’re all here to race and it just makes us dig that much harder.”

Moran offered a frank answer when asked if he was feeling good about his chances in Saturday’s feature.

“Not really,” he said. “We gotta throw a Hail Mary at this thing. We just gotta work on it and see if we can come up through there.”

The 50-year-old McCreadie, meanwhile, is already eliminated from championship contention because of his 155-point deficit to Thornton, but he can still ascend from fourth to second in the standings. If he wins his first-ever DTWC and Davenport and Moran finish 18th or worse, he’ll place second — a move that would push his points-fund earnings to $150,000 rather than $100,000 for fourth.

McCreadie showed plenty of strength with his Rocket Chassis house car, dominating the first heat to give him the honor of leading the DTWC field to the green flag.

“I don’t know if I’ve ever started on a pole in a 100-lapper here,” said McCreadie, a two-time Lucas Oil Series champion. “It’s just not easy to lead a hundred laps because when you’re the leader you don’t move around near as much as the guys behind you. You think you’re doing everything right and think you got a good line, but it is what it is. We’ll do our best to stay up there.”