Jonathan Davenport knew it had been a long while since he last won in Illinois, but nearly a whole decade?

Even he was taken aback by that statistic, that before Wednesday’s wire-to-wire FloRacing Night in America victory at Spoon River Speedway, he hadn’t reaped a checkered in the Land of Lincoln since the 2015 Prairie Dirt Classic at Fairbury Speedway. 

“Ten years? S---! That does make me feel old,” said the 41-year-old Davenport, who added “I never even thought about” the duration between his victories in the 21st state. “I had no idea it’d been that long. I knew it been a minute or two. It’s definitely a tough place. It doesn’t have many big, banked tracks in it.”

Over that timespan, the Blairsville, Ga., superstar logged 33 starts in Illinois without a triumph, but had his fair share of near-misses along the way, including four runners-up and three third-place finishes. Two of those third-place runs came during Illinois Speedweek two years ago at Spoon River and Lincoln Speedway.

And one of those runner-up finishes came this week a year ago when he finished second to Ricky Thornton Jr. at Farmer City Raceway in Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series action. Even then, Davenport wasn’t really in contention as Thornton took the lead with three laps left from race-long pacesetter Babb, who lost power on lap 71 of 74.

Halting his Illinois winless drought two months shy of a full decade (because the PDC is at the end of July) isn’t something for Davenport to be ashamed of. He’ll admit and accept that the prototypical black-dirt bullring in Illinois isn’t his forte.

Spoon River, however, just fits Davenport well because its high-banked, sweeping 3/8-mile layout reminded him of a Southeastern racetrack that’s been good to him over the years.

“This feels just like East Alabama, really, just with different dirt on it,” he said.

If there’s anything to glean from Davenport’s victory Wednesday, it’s just how well-rounded and steady his Double L Motorsports team is this year. He didn’t necessarily need the fastest race car to get the job done, nor be perfect from start to finish in the 50-lap feature.

Simply put, Davenport did what he knows well — run the middle of the racetrack and click off smooth, clean laps — and went about his business assured that the result would take care of itself.

“I’m getting too old to run the cushion like I used to,” Davenport said through a laugh. “I can do it every now and then, but I’ve never been one either to putt around the tires. Normally I hit the tires and knock the left-front off. The middle is the safest place and it’s where I like to be.”

Runner-up Hudson O’Neal appeared to have the faster car midway through Wednesday’s feature, overcoming a 2.5-second deficit to hound Davenport in traffic up through the one and only caution flag on lap 34. On the ensuing restart, O’Neal pulled alongside Davenport for the lead, but Davenport didn’t let his guard down.

“I could see him and hear him a few times before the caution came out. Even after that caution came out, I could see him on the inside,” Davenport said. “I knew what tires I was on and what tires he was on, so I don’t know what was right or wrong, or where I needed to run on the racetrack, I’m sure everybody watching thought I needed to move to the bottom. And I tried, it’s just I couldn’t leave the corner real good with a harder left-rear tire. I knew if I was gonna win, I had to momentum through the middle.”

It’d been nearly three months since Davenport last visited victory lane, on Feb. 15 at Volusia Speedway Park in Barberville, Fla., on the World of Outlaws Real American Beer Late Model Series.

Davenport, like his usual unperturbed self, has taken much pride in how consistent his Double L team has been this year, like the four podium runs and seven top-five finishes in 11 races since his most recent win before Wednesday.

“We’ve been really consistent, and the wins will come,” Davenport said. “The biggest thing all year I feel like is I’ve been on offense. I’ve never really had to play defense starting in the middle of the track. We feel OK with our program.”

Davenport has been a top-five racer in just about all of his 29 feature starts this year. His only blemishes are a 21st-place finish Jan. 31 at All-Tech Raceway in Ellisville, Fla., where he hit the turn one wall twice that evening — once in his heat race and another battling for eighth on lap 15.

In addition, he finished 20th on Feb. 13 at Volusia Speedway Park after exiting the feature early. He was also in contention to win March 21’s Lucas Oil feature at Atomic Speedway near Chillicothe, Ohio, but tangling with a lapped car sent him spinning out of second (he finished 10th that night) and at Georgetown (Del.) Speedway on April 25 he was running inside the top-five before getting collected in a wreck (finished 15th).

“This year, I can’t say anything bad,” Davenport said. “I’ve been really consistent and feel like I’ve been on offense all year.”

At Mississippi Thunder Speedway’s Dairyland Showdown in Fountain City, Wis., on Saturday, he started 12th and finished ninth in a newer car he’s sparingly used this year, but later found “parts on it that just wasn’t right.”

On Wednesday, Davenport rolled out that newer car and again had to make more tweaks before the feature he wouldn’t normally go forward with on a race night.

“We actually had to change stuff right after qualifying even though we went testing with this car a couple days ago,” Davenport said.

Davenport has focused on perfecting this newer car because he’s trying to save his primary machine he used in all 17 Georgia-Florida Speedweeks events for later in the year.

“I like running new cars at non-points races just to get a feel for them, you know? Not that any of them are going to be bad, but there can always be something wrong I can’t control,” Davenport said. “I feel like I have a really good car there. The other car, I ran it to death this year.

“We built it last year and all through Speedweeks. It has a lot of races on it. I’m trying to cycle in my newer cars because we’re getting to the real money part of the year here. I wanna make sure I know which car I want to run where and just be confident in what I’m bringing to the racetrack every night.”

Last year, Davenport changed up his philosophy on how to manage his rotation of race machines, starting with bringing a new car to Speedweeks, something he had never done before.

“Normally, I hardly ever run a new car in Florida. I always save an older car for Florida,” Davenport said. “But the last couple years, I started running a new car in Florida because it always seemed like I’d get so far behind in points by doing that. But I was afraid of tearing something up or tearing up a brand-new car. Hell, everybody is doing it, (racing brand-new cars in Florida), and it’s paid off.”

He was the only driver to make six figures throughout Speedweeks this year.

“I made more money in Florida this year than I ever had by far,” Davenport said. “It was definitely enough to put all new parts on the car that we were going to run. Now we’ve wore it out, not wore it out, but it’s getting some races on it. As I said, I’m just trying to cycle some new stuff in and make sure it’s good before we get to the money season, the crown jewel season, things like that.”

Davenport has four total cars in his stable so far: The one he started Speedweeks with; the one he’s employed this week that has a fifth-place finish at La Salle (Ill.) Speedway and a victory; his Eldora Speedway car; and “another car that I ran a few times that I really like,” which he debuted with March 14’s runner-up WoO finish at Smoky Mountain Speedway in Maryville, Tenn.

Davenport’s 17 podium finishes this year are third-most behind Bobby Pierce’s 21 and Ricky Thornton Jr.’s 18. With a solid fleet of race machines in the stable, Davenport believes that he and his team have another level in them they’ve yet to reach.

“I think so. We’ve really tested a lot and done a lot of different stuff toward the end of last year that’s really paid off for this year,” Davenport said. “Not saying everybody don’t do that, or don’t do that any other time, and I hate to say the words, ‘I’m just testing,’ because we’re really not just doing that. Last year we did a lot of different stuff and progressed on that for this year. So yeah, it’s really paying off right now. We’ve been really consistent. Most of the time, when we’ve had a bad night, it’s been on bad decisions and our own fault.”

He also thinks his qualifying program is back to where it was three years ago at the height of his $2 million season.

“We definitely have been a little better in qualifying all year,” Davenport said. “We really don’t know why. We have a really good motor program, both Cornett and Clements. I like both engine packages that we have. Our cars have just been really good. Even though we have a couple different cars, they’ve all been pretty consistent. I know what I got every time out is the biggest thing.”

And, of course, Davenport commends his three-man road crew of crew chief Cory Fosvedt, general mechanic Tyler Bragg and tire specialist Cole Perine.

“Our crew is doing an awesome job. I’m hard on them sometimes, but I’m trying to make everybody better,” Davenport said. “I know what it takes to be out here having done it so long. Cory’s been out here just as long as I have on the road. Tyler’s coming along, he wants to be a crew chief and has great potential to do that. He’s just young. He’s learning a lot.

“He did a great job the other week (April 25-27 during the Lucas Oil Mid-Atlantic swing) when Cory wasn’t with us. I’m really proud of what he’s doing. Cole’s doing an excellent job. He’s a driver himself, so I’m sure he’ll take stuff he’s learned and make his program better.”