ROSSBURG, Ohio (Sept. 7) — Jonathan Davenport failed to keep his crown jewel streak alive Wednesday in the conclusion of Eldora Speedway’s rain-halted Dream XXVIII. When trying to get over that reality, Davenport kept his initial assessment of a 21st-to-fourth run short and snappy.

“We had a good race car. Just ran out of laps and cautions,” Davenport said. “I can make all kinds of excuses. We just didn’t get it done.”

The sport’s top-ranked driver entered Eldora with three straight crown jewel victories last month at Cedar Lake's USA Nationals, Florence’s Sunoco North-South 100 and Batesville’s Comp Cams Topless 100. Factor in his Eldora Million and Silver Dollar Nationals victories earlier in the season and the Blairsville, Ga.’s crown jewel total is at five on the season.

If there was anybody to drive from the rear of the field to the win Wednesday, it would have been Davenport, who certainly boasted the machinery to notch another crown jewel. But just cautions in the makeup event — including 74-lap stretch of green-flag racing — didn’t help his cause.

“The racetrack was really smooth, but a lot faster with less laps on it,” Davenport said. “It was harder to start in the back, I feel like, and save your tires, and still make your way to the front. There were a lot of gas-smashers out there, and they can run faster for 40 to 50 laps, but you have to almost keep pace with them or you’re going to get lapped. The other guys are out in front, in clean air.

“It’s really hard to tip the scales, whether to go as hard as you can, or to save your tires. Just seemed like every time we got a run on somebody, they’d switch lanes. It just boils down to we didn’t have the racing luck, and just didn’t get there in time.”

Davenport then rattled off a handful of instances throughout Wednesday’s remaining 86 laps that would have made his path forward a lot easier.

“If I got to (Kyle) Bronson, and if he wouldn’t have switched lanes, I would’ve been in front of him,” he started. “If I got to Devin (Moran), and if he wouldn’t have switched lanes, I would’ve been ahead of him. When I got to Brandon (Overton), if he wouldn’t have switched lanes, I would’ve got ahead of him.

“Then when I got to fifth there, I had a caution with nine laps to go instead of 25 laps to go. It just didn’t go our way, and that’s the way it is. We’ve had a lot go our way this year, so we’re not going to hang our head about it.”

The World 100 is, traditionally, more of Davenport’s speed anyways. He’s won four of the last seven World 100s, including one of the double World 100s ran last September. A fifth globe on Saturday would put Davenport solely second all-time in World 100 wins behind only six-time winner Billy Moyer while breaking the current stalemate with fellow four-time winners Scott Bloomquist and Donnie Moran.

O’Neal’s Tough Luck

Hudson O’Neal could’ve made his splashy week even splashier Wednesday night when he took the Dream from Chris Madden on lap 17.

Last Friday, DirtonDirt.com broke the news that the 22-year-old would replace Brandon Sheppard as the next driver of the Rocket1 house car next season. Adding a potential Eldora crown jewel before taking the reins of the premier ride would be a nice boost. 

Then Devin Moran ran into trouble, losing the handle of his race car with nine laps to go and collected O’Neal with him, soiling a pair of top-10 runs. 

“He got in there hot and said he blew a right-front (tire). I don’t know. It sucks, man,” said O’Neal, who finished 13th and retired along with Moran and Bobby Pierce, who was also caught up in the wreck. “Me and him were probably going to run sixth and seventh there, and I know he’s trying to get by me, but now we have three destroyed race cars. It just sucks; on the very first night of this deal. But it’s Eldora I guess. We’ll fix her up and go back at it again tomorrow.”

O’Neal restarted fourth on Wednesday and led laps 17 and 18-24, making early work around the top side of the half-mile he knew wouldn’t be a preferred groove for long.

“I knew that top was fast. I knew I could get up there and get a run on (Madden), but I wasn’t going to be able to stay up there,” O’Neal said. “As soon as I passed him, I moved back down to the middle of the racetrack. I was hoping the clean air would help me stay out in front of him. I just wasn’t quite as good.

“I got better at the end of the race, but I struggled there through the middle section, and started fading pretty bad. I think once everybody’s tires started to die a little bit, I started coming back to life.

“We were OK. We have to get a little bit better. All in all, we’re making some progress.”

O’Neal lost the lead on lap 25 to Madden and by lap 50 fell out of the top five. This week, O’Neal’s sporting a livery that brings together three generations of racing. His nosepiece is designed after father Don O’Neal’s ride from 2012 — even carrying identical sponsorship from Optima Batteries — and his doorpanel is from grandfather Marvin O’Neal’s racing days in the 1970s.

O’Neal is using his normal quarterpanel as seen throughout the 2022 season. His girlfriend, Tessa Sims, came up with the throwback wrap idea and the O’Neals ran with it.

“She came to me wanting to put something together, and I thought it was a good idea,” he said.

Ferguson’s Frenzy

Carson Ferguson went from battling with the likes of eventual winner Brandon Overton and Chris Madden to afterthought in Wednesday’s Dream conclusion.

The 22-year-old hung his No. 93 Paylor Motorsports machine a little too wide on lap 18, which created a chain reaction of events. First, Ferguson slapped the wall and lost several positions. The dagger didn’t occur until lap 71 when signs of engine trouble forced him to retire from the race.

“I was just really free after that,” Ferguson said after he hit the wall early. “I fell back once (Gregg) Satterlee, (Zack) Dohm and (Devin) Moran had passed me, and got in a rhythm in the middle. I passed all three of them back, and felt good. Then the brown (groove) went away, and it kept getting slicker. I couldn’t find grip anywhere. I was too tight to run the top and steer up there and against the wall, and I was too free to move to the bottom. Right after Madden lapped me past halfway, I lost oil temperature. So I shut it off and came in, and checked the oil filter. It was caked with metal.”

Ferguson was credited with a 16th-place finish, a relative letdown after running as high as third early in the race’s conclusion. But Ferguson was more disappointed that his primary engine problems will forced him to a backup car for the remainder of the week’s World 100, which begins with Thursday’s double-program prelims.

“It sucks. Not thrilled,” Ferguson said. “Ever since we put this motor in we’ve been fast. Hopefully we can have the speed like we did in the other and the other motor.”

Wednesday’s troubles weren’t the only hurdles that tried throwing off Ferguson. Because he only brought his primary car along to Eldora, his buddy Chris Hargett was set to make an eight-hour overnight tow to bring Ferguson’s backup car from Burlington, N.C., to Eldora in time for Thursday’s World 100 prelims.

Though the backup car has a smaller motor compared to primary car, Ferguson remains optimistic he can qualify for Saturday’s $55,000-to-win crown jewel.

“It takes people like that to make the world go-around,” Ferguson said of Hargett’s favor amid the emergency. “I can’t thank him enough.”

Rice’s Fluctuating Dream

Josh Rice was happy to take home a top-10 finish during Wednesday’s 28th Dream at Eldora, where he crossed the finishing line eighth after climbing as high as third.

Considering 114 cars attempted to qualify for the crown jewel in June, momentarily breaking into a top three that included Brandon Overton and Chris Madden was something for Rice to behold.

“I didn’t really think of it like that. That’s pretty neat,” Rice said. “We’ve been really good. Whenever we can steer all night long, it seems like we run good. We just have a great group of guys and great group of sponsors. We’ll keep at it and see if we can get better throughout the week.”

Rice was hoping to have his team’s bigger engine in his car, but the powerplant, which was sent back to the Jay Dickens Racing Engines shop in Aberdeen, Miss., for repairs after problems developed before last month’s North-South 100, didn’t arrive in time for him to bolt it in Wednesday. 

The freight delivery of the motor took a circuitous route to Rice and company, and it somehow ended up in New York before finally reaching Rice’s shop. The motor is now, however, in Rice’s possession, and his team will decide Thursday if they want to drop it in the car for the World 100 action.

Still, it didn’t appear Rice was down on horsepower Wednesday. From laps 15 to 38, he went from 11th to third and for a moment looked pointed to track down Overton and Madden from two seconds behind. Rice held third for 15 laps before backpedaling.

“I didn’t think I was using the car up too bad. I was still right there around the bottom,” Rice said. “I feel like I was slowly catching them. I got to where I couldn’t steer very well, so I moved up to that middle, and I felt like I got faster at the end. I just got to where I couldn’t steer, and then slowly faded backwards. Top 10, we’re pretty excited with it.”

When asked where Eldora ranks on tracks of his liking, Rice said that “it’s not really my driving style. I feel like you do a lot of pedaling here. You’re not really on the gas like you think you’d be. It seems like every time we show up we’re fast here.”