QUEEN CREEK, Ariz. (Jan. 9) - The flip of the calendar to Jan. 1 isn’t merely symbolic. It’s downright cathartic for some.

You can put Jonathan Davenport in that category.

“Definitely,” Davenport asserted after winning Saturday’s 40-lap Keyser Manufacturing Wild West Shootout opener at FK Rod Ends Arizona Speedway. “When we brung in the new year, I just said, ‘Bye-bye, 2020.’ I’m sure there were a few good things that come out of it, but there wasn’t many. We lost a lot of good people and it just wasn’t a good year. I’m ready to get 2021 started.” | Complete WWS coverage

The past year was especially frustrating for the 37-year-old superstar from Blairsville, Ga., who won a mere five features — just the second time over the past decade that he failed to reach double figures with his seasonal victory total — and saw his two-year reign as Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series champion come to an end. But nine days into ’21, he’s undefeated after emerging triumphant in his first start with a brand-new Longhorn Chassis and feeling like a new man.

“I can’t put it into words really,” Davenport said while standing alongside his Double L Racing machine in the pit area after outdueling Ricky Thornton Jr. of Chandler, Ariz., for the $5,000 checkered flag. “This thing’s batting a thousand right now. We were fast time last night overall (in practice), then tonight we set fast time in our group and won our heat and won the feature.

“I’m just really glad how the car’s reacting to changes. It feels back like it’s supposed to.”

Davenport’s memorable 2021 debut came after a whirlwind week spent prepping for the cross-country trip to the Southwest. He publicly announced his intention to enter the six-race Wild West Shootout only on New Year’s Day because he said that until then his Lance Landers-owned team “didn’t know if we was gonna get ready in time.”

First Davenport had to drive to Nebraska to pick up the team’s sparkling new toterhome and trailer on Dec. 29. He slipped behind the wheel of the rig just in time to beat an approaching snowstorm and headed directly to Landers’s shop in Batesville, Ark., where he met crew chief Jason Durham and newly-hired crewman Clint Campbell — a 2020 Best Performance Motorsports member brought on to replace departed Double L Racing tire specialist Tyler Breshears — to move the equipment and other items from the old truck and trailer to the new one.

After a ceramic coating was put on the hauler, Davenport and Co. made a beeline to the Longhorn shop in Trinity, N.C., to complete assembly of their new car and prepare their second mount, which they debuted last fall and repaired after a late-November crash at Cherokee Speedway in Gaffney, N.C.

“Matt (Langston) and the guys at Longhorn started it and got a lot done to it,” Davenport said of the team’s newest vehicle. “This car went together really fast. We got it finished, got both cars ready to roll Monday (Jan. 4), and then Jason got to go home for a day (to his residence in Kentucky) and pick up a motor from Cornett (also in Kentucky) and I got to go home (to his house in Pelzer, S.C.) one day. Then Jason (and Campbell) left Wednesday morning (for Arizona in the hauler) and I met him in Little Rock (Ark.).

“We basically done a month worth of work in one week, but we got prepared and I think we’re really good. We got our noses built, we got another car back in Batesville in case something happens. We decided to bring both new ones out here because we got an extra practice day on Tuesday so we can shake that one up there (in the trailer) down. We switched shock companies, too (joining the Bilstein camp that already includes Longhorn house car driver Tim McCreadie of Watertown, N.Y.) so we want to get some laps with that, so what better way to test than to race?”

The scramble paid off with an opening-night triumph, but it certainly didn’t come easy. Though Davenport started second and led all but the race’s 31st lap, he had to battle hard to turn back the 30-year-old Thornton on a 3/8-mile oval that proved difficult to master.

Davenport used his technical ability to recognize the optimum way around the track — as well as some good fortune — to come out victorious.

“I was a little worried when the caution come out when we got in traffic (after the halfway point),” Davenport said. “I only felt OK in traffic because (the surface) was really rubbering hard there. I mean, I was really chattering tires and I couldn’t really move around, and I could see when somebody would slip from where me and (the lapped) Chad (Simpson) was running at, we could get right by ‘em. Then he’d slip one time and I knew where not to be.

“But then after we had a caution, like, it wasn’t there as much as it was. It’s weird. I guess the racetrack got warm, and maybe it got more grip, and plus I had a hard tire on and Ricky had a little bit softer tire. I was vibrating the tires, I was locked to the earth so hard just before the caution come out.

“So then I really didn’t know where to be, and then I heard (Thornton) one time and I thought he got a run on me, so I tried to move up a little bit and that was worse and that’s when he passed me (on the inside entering turn three on lap 27). Luckily he overshot the corner and I got back under him (to remain in front), so then I moved down and I just didn’t move down enough. He got way up under me before another caution came out (on lap 29 to save Davenport).

“He was just better than me on a shorter run,” he continued. “I just needed a long green-flag run for my tire to come back, and (on the restart) he got back under me (to take the lead on lap 31) and kind of forced my hand to go to the top. I was hung just a little bit so I just let it drift and go to the top and got a pretty decent run right there.”

Charging around the extreme outside of turns one and two, Davenport sailed past Thornton on the backstretch and regained command as lap 32 was scored. He stayed on the rim through the first and second corners the rest of the way and beat Thornton by 1.157 seconds.

“I just said, ‘Well, I’m just gonna try it up here another lap,’ and I seen Jason open up the (signal) sticks a little bit,” Davenport said. “I’m like, ‘Well, I don’t know if it was just momentum or what,’ but I was faster up there. It was just a little bit of luck on our side finally — and a really good race car.”

The immediate 2021 success put Davenport in a high-flying mood and left him appreciative of all those who contributed to his promising start.

“I gotta thank Lance (Landers) and Steve (Martin of team sponsor Nutrien Ag) for sticking behind me,” Davenport said. “They’ve been giving me hell this off-season there ain’t no doubt, but we’ve been working hard this past week and it’s paid off.

“Thanks to everybody at Longhorn, everybody from the welders to the body guys. Matt (Langston), he stayed late a bunch of nights getting everything prepared for when we got there to get this car built. He didn’t get to come out here because Longhorn is so busy right now trying to get cars done for Speedweeks, but he’ll be traveling with us again this year.

“And I got an old friend back here, Kevin (Rumley),” he added, referring to the Bilsten Shocks engineer who wrenched Davenport to a historic 2015 season and numerous other successes. “We made a switch to Bilstein so he’ll be helping us some this year (including in Arizona).”

An out-of-the-box victory on unfamiliar turf gave Davenport the sense that his struggles of 2020 might be behind him — and he might just end up enjoying a lucrative visit to Arizona. He’s in position to collect the Wild West Shootout’s huge bonus cash — $250,000 for sweeping the six races, $100,000 for winning five, $25,000 for capturing four or $10,000 for claiming three — as well as the $25,000-to-win miniseries finale on Jan. 17.

“Now we got the confidence that we know we can do it,” said Davenport, whose only previous Wild West Shootout appearance came in 2016 when he won three times at USA Raceway in Tucson, Ariz. “We was coming into a new track and we didn’t really know. We thought we could come out and run with these guys, but we didn’t have that good of a season last year. When we come out here the last time in 2016, we had just had an awesome season. It’s just a 180-degree reverse to come out here this time — I had one of my worst years I had in a long time, and we knock one off right off the bat. So this is just a confidence booster.

“We got us a fresh look just to change the morale up,” he added, noting that his car sports more blue accents than in the past. “Hopefully we ain’t putting lipstick on a mule trying to make it like a thoroughbred — and so far, this horse will run.”