Jonathan Davenport Wins SRX Season Finale; Ryan Newman Captures Championship

Mathematically, Ryan Newman had a chance to lose the 2023 Camping World SRX Series championship in Thursday night's season finale at Lucas Oil Speedway in Wheaton, Missouri.

However, Newman put that possibility to bed in the Opening Heat Race on Thursday night, as he scored five points with an eighth-place finish. While it wasn't an impressive outcome, it was enough to clinch the championship for Newman, as Tony Stewart spun late in the Heat, and finished 10th.

"Well, it means a lot no doubt," Newman said after the Main Event. "Any kind of championship. The SRX Race Series, Superstar Racing Experience, what can you say? Guys like Tony Stewart, Jonathan Davenport, who has won everything on dirt. Racing against Kenny Schrader, Kenny Wallace. This is a whole lot of fun. Castroneves is an IndyCar champion winner. All of that stuff, it's pretty special."

With the championship sealed, the focus turned to who would win the 2023 season finale for the Camping World SRX Series.

Jonathan Davenport, a three-time Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series champion, would start the Main Event from the pole position, and he would flat-out dominate by leading the opening 60-or-so laps of the race without much of a challenge.

But then, Clint Bowyer started reeling in Davenport, and the 10-time NASCAR Cup Series race winner would begin to apply some pressure.

After a caution for a spin by Helio Castroneves due to contact from Ernie Francis Jr. with 23 laps to go, the race for the lead continued to be fierce between Davenport and Bowyer.

With each lap, Bowyer began to get closer and closer to Davenport, and it felt inevitable that Bowyer would attempt to pounce. Just as Bowyer was about to make his move, Francis Jr. crashed to bring out another caution.

On the restart with 10 Laps to go, Bowyer decided it was time to make his move. He sailed his No. 07 car to the inside of Davenport in Turn 1. Bowyer would pull off the slide job for the race lead, but it would be short-lived as he had lost all momentum as he and Davenport made contact.

After some jockeying back and forth, Bowyer was knocked back to fifth place, while Davenport finally took a seemingly insurmountable lead.

Another caution with three laps remaining would give the field false hope as Davenport took off on the final restart to score the race win over Brad Keselowski, Ken Schrader, Ryan Newman, and Bowyer.

Davenport was in awe of the win, and said that he wasn't expecting Bowyer's crossover, or he would have driven a little differently with 10 laps to go.

"I'm speechless. This is awesome," Davenport said. "I didn't know Clint was going to slide me right there. I would have let him go on across, but I hit him at the right time, I was already in the gas. I knew he was going to come back again, so I lifted and somebody else put us three wide. At that point, there ain't that many laps left. I had done saved enough."

SRX Main Event Race Results

Prior to the start of the Main Event, two Heat races would be contested, which would ultimately set the starting lineup for the big race.

Jonathan Davenport, a dirt racing expert, would dominate from the pole position as he cruised to the Heat 1 win over Ken Schrader, Clint Bowyer, Marco Andretti, and Brad Keselowski.

Heat 1 Race Results

The field would be inverted Bobby Labonte would hold off Clint Bowyer for the Heat 2 victory. Kenny Wallace would finish Heat 2 in third, while Jonathan Davenport, and Marco Andretti would round out the top-five finishers.

Heat 2 Race Results

Photo Credit: Christopher Fisher, TobyChristie.com