Hank Davis entered 2024 with plans to run his first full season with the American Sprint Car Series National Tour. But what he didn’t plan was doing it in the seat of the No. 2C machine with 2000 Series champion Wayne Johnson calling the shots.
After Johnson got injured earlier in the year, taking him out of the car, and Seth Bergman decided to return to his family car after two races with TwoC Racing, Davis was presented with an opportunity too good to pass up.
“My original plans were still to run the ASCS stuff with a different team,” Davis said. “Then things kind of went sideways there and fell apart. So, everything happened with Seth leaving, this being open, I just hit Wayne up and said I was on the list, and everything worked out to where we could make it happen.”
For Johnson, the decision to put Davis in the car for the remainder of the season came out of his desire to help young, deserving drivers advance through the ranks of Sprint Car racing.
“More than anything, I wanted to give somebody a chance that more than likely wouldn’t get an opportunity. Somebody had to give me a chance at one time,” Johnson said. “It was a balancing act. I want to make sure I felt like we could be competitive, and that it was somebody who deserved a chance to move to the next level.”
Davis honed his craft racing locally around Oklahoma before becoming an overnight sensation thanks to a prelim night win at the 2023 Chili Bowl Nationals but had little experience in a winged 360 Sprint Car entering the 2024 season. However, he wasted no time getting up to speed, rattling off five-straight top fives on the National Tour to start his TwoC Racing tenure.
“I really didn’t think I’d be as good as what we are now,” Davis said. “I really just think it’s a testament to how good Wayne is. I don’t have a whole lot of laps in this stuff, so him just teaching me, we’re learning together, learning each other. I think we’ve probably far exceeded our expectations. I knew we could be good, but I don’t think we thought we could be this good.”
However, Davis isn’t the only one adjusting to a new environment. After Johnson’s injury in April at the Texas Motor Speedway Dirt Track, he has turned his full attention to the crew chief role for the first time in his four-decade racing career.
“I didn’t know if I could be a crew chief, I’ve never been a crew chief other than crewing my own car,” Johnson said. “There’s a lot of unknowns. I just felt like starting with somebody from scratch that didn’t really know what he wanted, I felt like it would be a good effort and we could build the team together.”
Looking back on the first two months of his partnership with Davis, Johnson shares the same sentiment as his driver: things have gone better than either of them could have imagined.
“I felt like we could run well,” Johnson said. “I didn’t know that we would run in the top five nine out of ten times or whatever. I know he’s down on himself pretty bad about not winning yet, but I’m like ‘Dude, you just keep learning and doing what you’re doing, the wins will start coming.’ And when they do, it’ll be just like Sam [Hafertepe Jr.] or Bergman. It won’t be just one, it’s going to be multiple.”
While Johnson admitted that teaching someone else how to drive a race car can be like speaking a foreign language, he’s enjoying the process of helping Davis develop.
“It’s really weird for me to explain as a driver, how to drive the car,” Johnson said. “It’s really hard for me to explain, because I just did it. I didn’t think about how to explain to somebody how to do it. It’s been a little bit tough.
“He’s adapting very well, and every week it just takes time. Unfortunately, Bergman, Sam and some of these guys have been doing this thing for years, and I think winged starts, Hank’s probably got 15 total. I feel like we just need to get some time under our belt.”
Up next on the docket will be Davis’s toughest test yet: the Xtream powered by Mediacom 360 Knoxville Nationals presented by Great Southern Bank, Aug. 1-3. The team attended a pair of weekly events at Knoxville to get Davis comfortable around the 1/2-mile ahead of the Nationals and has one more visit planned for Saturday night.
Davis had never competed at Knoxville before this season, and he has quickly learned how the “Sprint Car Capital of the World” presents a challenge unlike any other.
“I learned how hard that place is, and how fast you can get humbled and how fast you can suck somewhere,” Davis said. “The first week we went, we weren’t that great, the second week we went, we were alright. We got better.
“Honestly, I would say for sure we can be in the B-Main on Saturday, but we all obviously want to make the Feature and see what we can do. So, we’ll take what we learned there and go at it.”
Fortunately for Davis, his mentor is a two-time 360 Nationals winner in 2000 and 2008, and that experience has been invaluable in getting him up to speed on the larger tracks on the schedule. And judging by his finish of fourth at the 4/10-mile Lakeside Speedway on Friday, Davis is a quick learner.
“If you look at Lakeside, that’s a big racetrack,” Johnson said. “Going to Knoxville these last two weeks have really elevated our big track program, because at Lakeside, we were in the hunt there. Weren’t quite up to speed with Bergman and Sam, but I do feel like our big track program for him is really coming along.”
Fans can purchase tickets to the Xtream powered by Mediacom 360 Knoxville Nationals presented by Great Southern Bank and find additional event information by clicking here. Can’t make it to the track? Catch every lap live on DIRTVision.
