Davis Comes Within a Whisker of First Modified Win at Kingsport
Georgia Driver Confident Heading North to “The Granite State”
Spencer Davis came within a whisker of his first career Tour-Type Modified win last Friday night at Kingsport Speedway (TN). After an early run-in with Jason Myers while battling for the lead, the 16-year-old battled back to the front to set up an exciting three-wide finish for the lead in the KOMA Unwind Modified Madness Series event. He would wind up finishing third, but the strong performance battling for the win has Davis confident that his first win isn’t far away.
“We had a little bit of fun,” Davis said with a laugh. “We had a really good run. We definitely had the dominant car Friday night at the end. We ran the leader down from a straightaway and attempted to make the pass when we made contact. We had the shot to take the lead on the white flag and it’s really promising knowing we had a car that good. We led both practices, took the pole and ran up front all day.”
Davis first made contact with Myers during the middle portion of the race as the two leaders attempted to make their way through slower traffic. The incident
forced both drivers to restart from the rear of the field
before Davis made his way back to the front to
challenge for the race win.
“We were racing hard the whole time and he was
pulling one of his Bowman Gray stunts where he was
trying to block us,” said Davis. “I got up underneath him
and he went to break check me to take my right front
out. I had nowhere to go and we made contact. It
wasn’t too major, we both kept on going. He tried to
make contact under caution, but they put us both back to the rear.
“We both got back up there and went to go off into the corner coming to two to go and made contact again. Nothing else was hurt. We made a good challenge for the lead coming to the white flag. We got up next to Dan Spinney and just couldn’t get it quite cornered right coming off the corner. We made a three-wide finish coming to the checkered and came home third.”
Coming off of his strong run at Kingsport, Davis and the Hillbilly Racing team will now head north to “The Granite State” for the Bullring Bash 100 on Sunday, May 17. This will be Davis’ second start in the $5,000-to-win event after learning a lot and finishing ninth out of 35 cars last season.
“It’s just like Five Flags Speedway as far as tire wear,” Davis recalled. “Last year we short pitted to gain track position when everyone else pitted. Being my first time there I ran a little bit too hard last year and we gave up just a tad bit at the end, but that’s definitely helpful going in this year. They run a different tire than the Tour, too. That was my first time on those particular tires. They’re still Hoosiers but they’re a different tire and different compound. I guess we have a lot more in our memory bank this year than we did at this time last year.”
Overall, the Dawsonville, Georgia driver believes he and the team are in a much better position to compete for the win this time around. With a little bit of luck on their side, Davis believes he can have his orange and black No. 79 Coors Light 21 Means 21 machine out front at the end.
“This time last year was my first adventure up north with the Hillbilly Racing crew,” Davis stated. “We definitely have come a long way since last year, that’s for sure. We’ll be going there with our new Northeast Race Car and are really, really confident going there. I feel like we’ve made some gains on our setups and everything. The whole team has gotten a whole lot more acclimated with each other. I’m just really confident going into Lee and I think we have a shot to win.”
For more information on Spencer Davis, follow him on Twitter at @SpencerDavis_29.
