Davenport Speedway
Victory at Davenport therapeutic for Winger
By Todd Turner
DirtonDirt.com managing editor
Ashton Winger heads to victory at Davenport. (brendonbauman.com)
DAVENPORT, Iowa (June 21) — Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times ...
With apologies to Dickens, DIRTcar Summer Nationals fans at Davenport Speedway were treated to a tale of three races Thursday with Ashton Winger writing the final chapter for a $5,000 victory, his first on the 28-race Midwestern tour this season. | Complete Summer Nationals coverage
“It felt like three different kind of races there,” said Winger, who overtook race-long leader Chad Simpson on lap 20, gave up the lead to Chad’s younger brother Chris Simpson on lap 28, then regained it with five laps to go with an daring high-side pass in turn two. “You know, I really thought I gave that one away.”
Instead of giving it away, the 23-year-old Hampton, Ga., driver finally got his Summer Nationals on track after failing to post a top-five finish in the first six events, including when he broke a motor one night earlier while contending for a victory at Moberly (Mo.) Motorsports Park.
Winger, who tallied six Summer Nationals victories in 2021 on the day-after-day series, scored just his second Super Late Model victory of a 2023 season that’s been marked by struggles, unsavory incidents and plenty of bad luck.
Perhaps Winger’s recent history helped him let it all hang out when he made a daring high-side move around Chris Simpson in turn two to take a lead he’d never give up on the 36th of 40 laps. Had the frontrunners made contact, Winger’s car likely would’ve slipped over the backstretch banking, ending any hopes of victory.
When Simpson drove hard through turns one and two and began sliding up, “I definitely thought there was gonna end one of two ways — either me (getting) by or us getting together and me crashing,” Winger said. “I don’t know, I figured we’ve had enough bad luck happen, and if it happened, whatever. It worked out. Sometimes it doesn’t.”
Winger said when they “got racing side-by-side there, you probably couldn’t have put a piece of paper between us,” adding his “ass was puckered” in securing the lead from a Simpson brother for the second time.
Father and crew chief Gary Winger watched from the infield, glad to see his son take control at halfway. During the caution period just before Chris Simpson stole the lead from Winger, Gary Winger said this: “Whether we win or not, I love this place.”
And Ashton loves it too, at least as the site of his best 2023 Summer Nationals run so far as he tries to turn around a season that’s so far been memorable for all the wrong reasons.
“My car has been good. You know, this is only our second Super win of the year (but) I feel like I should have won 10 by now,” said Winger, whose highly publicized run-in with former car owner G.R. Smith at Florida’s Southern Raceway ended with not a victory lane picture but police mug shots for both Wingers. “I’ve had flats, I’ve had right-front floppers fall off, I’ve made the joke I’ve been to damn jail. You know what I’m saying? It’s any and everything that can happen has happened. And I say that, something different will happen probably sometime this week.”
He’s hoping the second half of the season will be less chaotic for the Jeff Mathews-owned team.
“My car’s just been really quick and I’ve got really good people to fall back on. I’m really, really happy with the team I’m with now,” he said at the rear of his transporter in the Mississippi Valley Fairgrounds pits. “It makes me probably more happy to see how happy my dad is, where we’re at now. We’re living my dream, but it’s also his, so it makes it a little more special for me. And it’s just cool. You know, when things are going good. It’s just hard to explain.”
With Thursday’s Summer Nationals event at Spoon River Speedway in Banner, Ill., cancelled because of the track’s water-truck breakdowns, the Wingers and crew members will spend the day swapping engines in his other car to replace the broken motor from Moberly. Then he’ll go back to work Friday at the Brownstown (Ill.) Bullring.
While Winger has battled national touring competitors — sometimes successfully — during his young career, winning on a regional tour isn’t the step back some might believe.
“I actually don’t think people realize, unless you’re in the thick of it, how many things have to go right to win a race. You know what I mean?” Winger asked. “And I was talking with (Billy) Moyer Jr. earlier, and we were just talking about how I feel like I’m out on the road racing a pretty good bit — probably not as much as I’d like to be — but back when he used to run with the (World of) Outlaws and then with Lucas (Oil Late Model Dirt Series) some, all out and about, it used to be you could kind of go back to a regional race and kind of get your feet back up under you. And now? It’s hard to win a $3,000-to-win (race) back at home. None of these things are easy and it just it’s rewarding to get one.”
