Normally a big-race weekend at Eldora Speedway means success for Jonathan Davenport. But that hasn’t been the case through the first two nights of the Dirt Late Model Stream Invitational.

Davenport, 36, of Blairsville, Ga., offered a succinct summation of his latest visit to the high-banked, half-mile oval following Friday night’s action.

“Hell,” Davenport said in exasperation. “It’s been hell.”

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With victories in three of the last five World 100s — including last year’s event — and a 2015 triumph in the Dream, Davenport has experienced far more joy than pain at the famed track. The script has flipped on him, however, during this unprecedented spectator-free weekend.

“Nothing at all (has gone right) ever since we parked the truck (in the pit area on Thursday),” Davenport commented. “We got a good parking spot, and from then it went all downhill.”

Davenport’s misery began on Thursday night when a blown head gasket was found in his Double L Racing Longhorn machine after he won the B-main, forcing his Jason Durham-led crew to hastily pull out the team’s second car for the 30-lap feature. They got Davenport on the track with scant minutes to spare — just in time for J.D.’s evening to grow even worse shortly thereafter.

“We was coming through the field decent there and then we had a freak thing again,” Davenport said. “We sucked a shim through the piston of the right-front shock, so then I didn’t have a right-front shock and we fell back from there (finishing 18th).”

Friday’s preliminary program proved to be no better for Davenport, whose fortunes simply continued to spiral in the wrong direction.

“We hot-lapped really good, then just went out there and the (steering) rack messed up qualifying,” Davenport related. “It just felt like there was just nothing there. I didn’t know where my tires were, so we qualified pretty much last (36th of 43 entries).”

After being hampered by a misfiring engine in his heat (a bad plug wire was found afterward) and sneaking into the feature’s field by claiming the third and final transfer spot in the second B-main, Davenport nearly had to forfeit his position in the headliner because his car’s engine, which began overheating significantly during the last-chance race, was still steaming as the A-main was called to the track. His crew scrambled to bring down the powerplant’s temperature so he could leave the pit area and join the pace laps.

Davenport finally made it onto the racing surface after the field formed into a four-wide parade lap. He didn’t stay in the race very long, slowing on lap 10 to bring out a caution flag and then limping into the pits with more steam emitting from his car.

“We’ve never had a problem with Cornett motors running hot, but we can’t keep ‘em cool,” said Davenport, who was scored as the 24th-place finish in Friday’s feature. “It started getting a little warm in the heat race and we didn’t think nothing of it, and then it got really hot in the B-main. We couldn’t never get it cooled off enough there really to get any water in it.

“I don’t know if this one’s blowed a head gasket too or not. We’re gonna try to replace a few things, crank it back up and see what it does, and then we may have to change motors.”

As Davenport looked ahead to Saturday’s 67-lap, $50,000-to-win finale, he conceded that his Stream Invitational preliminary outings represented “by far” the most frustrating Eldora appearance of his career.

“Usually you come here and everything’s going you way, it’s pretty easy,” said Davenport, who is scheduled to start seventh in Saturday’s first of four 15-lap heats. “Well, it ain’t ever easy at Eldora, but it’s smoother. This one here’s been hell. I could see why people don’t like to come here when s— starts going bad.”

Moran well positioned

A late-race stumble likely cost Devin Moran of Dresden, Ohio, a shot at a podium finish in Friday night’s 30-lap feature, but he was satisfied with a fourth-place result that set him up perfectly for greater success in Saturday’s $50,000-to-win finale.

“We’re not bad,” Moran said after failing to overtake Dale McDowell of Chickamauga, Ga., for third as the race wound down. “I felt like we were probably a little better than Dale there (in the closing stages) and then I got into the (turn one) wall (on lap 26) and messed up my spoiler. I drove too hard, but all in all, it was a good finish. To run top-five … these are literally the best guys in the country, so it’s great.

“I’ve never ran great here, so for the first weekend here in the Longhorn (fielding by fellow Ohioan Tye Twarog), I felt like we’re going in the right direction. We just need to make some minor changes.”

Moran, 25, would especially like to match the speed of the Longhorn machine driven by Brandon Overton of Evans, Ga., who won Friday’s $10,000 top prize.

“Man, is he good or what?” Moran said. “I don’t know how he’s not Driver of the Year right now. He’s got to be No. 1.”

Moran, whose career-best major-even weekend finish at Eldora came when he placed second in a 2016 World 100 preliminary feature, is scheduled to start from the pole position in Saturday’s first heat. He’s hopeful that he can squeeze some more speed out of his No. 9 and continue to avoid the overheating issues that are plaguing many entrants in the Stream Invitational.

“A lot of people are having motor problems and luckily we have a great engine builder with Clements and everything’s been good for us,” Moran said. “The problem is, we’re down in this bowl (in the pit area). You look, there’s nothing really around us. We’re down in here, and it’s so hot, and so humid, and we run our motors harder here than we do anywhere in the country. It’s one of them deals where it’s just hard on s—.

“We’ve been (running) hot every night, but not as hot as other guys. It’s hard to really fix that at this place. But all in all, when you’re at Eldora you kind of know how it’s gonna be … especially when we’re running (features) in daylight, you know?”

Georgian feeling good

Even after retiring early from Friday’s 30-lap feature and finishing 22nd, Donald McIntosh of Dawsonville, Ga., had a hard time wiping a smile off his face.

“Oh, dude, I’m so excited,” McIntosh said. “I’m still pretty excited because I know we got a really good race car.”

McIntosh, 27, enjoyed arguably the best Eldora performance of his career, winning a heat race and running as high as seventh early in the A-main before he began to steadily fade from contention and ultimately retire on lap 22.

“The carburetor’s sputtering,” said McIntosh, who had to patch up his car after crushing its right-rear bodywork in a brush with the turn-two wall during time trials. “We had the same trouble last night. We put a different carburetor on it and we’re having the same problem. I think we got the float levels a little too high.

“The unfortunate part is, we just don’t race this thing (his self-owned 007 Race Car carrying a Buick engine) enough. We practiced with it once (this year) at (Georgia’s) Senoia (Raceway) but that’s it. We just don’t have enough time to get little bugs out of it, and then we come to one of the biggest races of the year.”

“It’ll run wide-open, like in that heat race where you’re just on the mat,” he added. “But once we get that carburetor worked out I think we’ll be really, really good here.”

McIntosh drives Larry Garner’s Blount Motorsports machine in special events across the Southeast, but the team decided to bypass the Eldora Stream when McIntosh received a last-minute invitation on Monday to replace one of four invitees who declined the opportunity to attend. He said he was thankful that Garner allows him to fill in his schedule with his own machine that was built in 2018.

“For running a car with shocks that nobody else is running (Motion Control Suspension, where McIntosh works full-time), and car that Doug Stevens and I built together, we’re pretty happy,” said McIntosh, who is scheduled to start seventh in Saturday’s fourth heat.

Wells returns to winner’s stage

Standing on Eldora Speedway’s winner’s stage Friday night after watching his driver, Brandon Overton, capture the 30-lap feature brought back memories for David Wells.

While it might have been Wells’s first A-main victory as a car owner on a major Eldora weekend, he posed for photos on that very spot once before some 32 years earlier. He was part of Scott Bloomquist’s memorable World 100-winning performance in 1988, freshening the motor in the MasterSbilt car that Wells’s brother fielded for the future Hall of Fame driver.

Wells, 63, is ready for an even bigger celebration with the 29-year-old Overton after Saturday’s Stream Invitational finale. He’s relishing the success that Overton has already enjoyed in his first full season driving his equipment — Friday was Overton’s eighth overall win of 2020 — and looking for more.

“It’s impressive to be a part of what he’s doing,” Wells said of Overton while standing in the post-race technical inspection area. “He capability is just unbelievable. It’s got me excited about racing again.

“I feel really good right now. I know we’re racing against the best in the business right here, so I feel real confident that we’re capable of going out there and competing with ‘em.”

Wells, who flew up from his farm outside Sarasota, Fla., to attend the three-night meet at Eldora, would double his career-high race win as a car owner if Overton were to take Saturday’s $50,000 checkered flag. The former coal company owner’s previous best first-place prize was $25,010 for the 2010 Magnolia State 100 at Columbus (Miss.) Speedway with Mike Marlar of Winfield, Tenn., driving for him.