Bobby put on a masterclass in patience and precision Friday night at Florence (KY) Speedway, charging from fourth to claim the $6,000-to-win North/South 100 preliminary feature. The win was his 27th career Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series triumph.
It didn’t take long for the “Smooth Operator” to move forward. On lap two, Bobby got rolling on the high side, powering into third down the backstretch. Just one lap later, he slipped into the runner-up spot and set his sights on the leader.
With 17 laps to go, Bobby pulled alongside Davenport as the pair closed in on heavy lapped traffic. Three laps later, the two front-runners ran up on side-by-side traffic, nearly going four-wide as Bobby stayed high and Davenport dove low.
With 11 laps remaining, Bobby threw a slider into turn three, cleared Davenport, and officially took command on lap 15. From there, he patiently navigated the traffic and built a 1.9-second advantage at the checkered flag.
“It’s very tough to lead,” Bobby said. “These corners, when they come up, you’ve got so many different lines to choose from. And JD likes to run that middle line and come down. So, it’s a great track — had a bottom, middle, top — but just a fun race. One time the lap cars were directly double file. And I kind of thought, actually, JD made the mistake of going low, not high. But he got under them guys. And we were almost four wide, and that’s not a place you want to be, so had to back out of it.
“The straightaways are so long, lots of time to decide on where they’re going. You just got to look ahead, kind of see where they’re running, but before you get to them already have that decision in your mind before you get there. Thanks to my crew — they gave me a good car. My dad’s been working hard. We were kind of struggling with setup, but I think we figured out a lot more tonight. The car had a lot of traction.”