What would have been Bloomquist’s seventh Dream win quickly turned into a nightmare.
Bloomquist rolled off the track and onto the post-race scales to make his victory official, but came up 25 pounds light of the required 2,300-pound minimum. Bloomquist was allowed to roll off the scale and back on one time, and did so as crew members and fans swarmed the scale area to watch the drama. Race officials again gave Bloomquist a thumbs down.
Bloomquist dusted his tires heading back to his hauler. He declined to comment.
“I hate it for him. It’s definitely not the way I wanted to win my first crown jewel,” Davenport said. “I wanted to beat that guy. He’s so good around here.”
For most of the race Davenport was better.
The driver from Blairsville, Ga., grabbed the lead from fellow Georgian Shane Clanton after 61 laps. He rolled to a comfortable lead until a caution for debris with 11 laps to go bunched the field behind him. Davenport, chosing to restart on the high side, held off Bloomquist on the double-file restart. He couldn’t do it a second time. Davenport spun his tires after a caution two laps later to let Bloomquist lead.
“When he got by me I wanted to kick myself,” Davenport said.
Instead, Davenport kicked his late model into another gear. He rode high along the concrete wall, driving harder he said than he ever has. Davenport chased down Tennessee’s Bloomquist and pulled within slide-job range to start the last lap, but didn’t have a clear shot with the lapped car of Jimmy Owens in the way.
“As soon as I got to him at the white flag, there Jimmy was,” Davenport said. “I thought, ‘Man, I just lost my chance.’ I thought, ‘Well our race is done.’ Second place to Scott is good, I guess.”
After the race, Davenport gave Bloomquist a thumbs up before Bloomquist’s ill-fated trip to the scales.
“We would never even take that kind of chance being close to light,” Davenport said. “I was probably 60 pounds heavy. I just can’t believe it. He’s way too good to have his car close to weight.
“I don’t know if I deserved to win it because I didn’t win it, not the way I wanted to. We definitely had a dominate car. Scott had a really good car. I knew it was going to be down to me and him at the finish. All the bad breaks I’ve had finally came back around.”
The finish was reminiscent of the 2005 World 100. Winner Shannon Babb was disqualified after coming up light at the scales, handing the victory to Dale McDowell.
The win helped Davenport sweep three straight features at Eldora. He won a $2,000 feature Thursday, a $5,000 feature on Friday and the $100,000 Dream on Saturday for a $107,000 weekend.
“I haven’t even thought about the money yet,” Davenport said. “I’m just thinking about the win in front of this huge crowd. It’s definitely going to help out our kind of small and under-funded team.”
Prior to the race, the 28-car field paid tribute to the late Earl Baltes during its traditional four-wide parade lap. The field lined up with three cars in the front row for a missing man formation.
“I really hate that I won it one year too late. I never really got to meet Earl,” Davenport said. “I would have liked to come up here and seen him, talk with him and get him to tell me some stories about this place.”
Few would top Davenport’s wild win Saturday.
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