Superman goes where he’s needed and with his cap flying stiffly behind him in the 18th running of the Knoxville Late Model Nationals, Jonathan Davenport scored a $50k win over Iowa’s Tyler Bruening on the half-mile Knoxville (Iowa) Raceway.

It was the ninth Lucas Oil Late Model win of the season in his 29th start – a statistic that includes a remarkable six consecutive wins from July 24th through August 26th. Davenport also has four World of Outlaws Late Model victories and a half-dozen wins in other major series this season for a total of 21 overall.

Even with all that success, this was a bucket list win for man called Superman. It is his first at Knoxville – a track famed for spring car racing that is becoming a staple of late models as well.

Davenport led the 50-lap affair early, but gave it up to Bobby Pierce on Lap 9 as the field returned to green after a caution. Two laps later, Bruening commanded the top spot and held it for the next 37 laps.

In the closing laps, Bruening stretched his advantage to two seconds until Davenport found the high side. With Lap 45 in the books, Davenport closed the gap and was on Bruening’s back bumper by Lap 47. Davenport dove to the bottom groove in Turn 1, pulled alongside and took the lead on the following circuit, denying Bruening the first Lucas Oil Late Model win of his career.

Jonathan Davenport wins the Lucas Oil Late Model Knoxville Nationals! #LucasLMNats pic.twitter.com/RuZGuVNIEk

“I wish I could have said that I was planning for that,” Davenport said in a press release. “I was just too tight there. I didn’t have the best race car by far. I made a mistake first in lapped traffic I thought I might get rolled on the outside and let Bobby [Pierce] around me so I chose the bottom and let Tyler around me.

“I was trying to race Earl [Pearson Jr.] as clean as I could there, but I knew I had to get by him. I got a big run on Tyler there one time getting into one. I could have blasted on him, but I knew this could be his first crown jewel, so I didn’t want to take it away from him like that.”

More: Mike Marlar wins 2021 Knoxville Late Model Nationals

For Bruening, the disappointment was bitter. In 40 combined starts this season with the Outlaws and Lucas Oil, he’s earned seven top-10s, but the closest he came to winning was a pair of fourth-place results at River Cities Speedway in Grand Forks, N.D. and Boone Speedway in his native Iowa.

“I needed two less laps I guess to hold him off,” Bruening said. “I don’t know. When you are out front for all those laps it’s pretty tough to move out of your line that’s worked the whole race.

“I didn’t know how close he was until it was too late there getting off of four. I didn’t know how high I could go if all the way up there would do it. It was fun to run up front. We just got beat by the best in the world right now.”

Brandon Sheppard scored his 25th top-five of the season and rounded out the podium.

The governing body for Formula One on Friday said IndyCar star Colton Herta will not be granted the Super License that the American needs to join the F1 grid next season.

“The FIA confirms that an enquiry was made via the appropriate channels that led to the FIA confirming that the driver Colton Herta does not have the required number of points to be granted an FIA Super Licence,” the FIA said in a statement.

The FIA decision was not a surprise.

Red Bull was interested in the 22-year-old Californian and considering giving Herta a seat at AlphaTauri, its junior team. AlphaTauri has already said that Pierre Gasly will return next season and Yuki Tsunoda received a contract extension earlier this week.

However, AlphaTauri has acknowledged it would release Gasly, who is apparently wanted at Alpine, but only if it had a compelling driver such as Herta to put in the car. F1 has not had an American on the grid since Alexander Rossi in 2015, but Herta did not particularly want the FIA to make an exception to the licensing system to get him a seat.

At issue is how the FIA rates IndyCar, a series it does not govern. The points it awards to IndyCar drivers rank somewhere between F2 and F3, the two junior feeder series into F1.

IndyCar drivers have criticized the system in defense of Herta and the intense, close racing of their own highly competitive series. Herta has won seven IndyCar races, is the youngest winner in series history and has four starts in the Indianapolis 500. He qualified on the front row in 2021 and finished a career-best eighth in 2020.

Rossi, who has spent the last four seasons as Herta’s teammate at Andretti Autosport, lashed out this week because “I’m so sick and tired of this back and forth” regarding the licensing.

“The whole premise of it was to keep people from buying their way into F1 and allowing talent to be the motivating factor,” Rossi wrote on social media. “That’s great. We all agree Colton has the talent and capability to be in F1. That’s also great and he should get that opportunity if it’s offered to him. Period.

“Motorsport still remains as the most high profile sport in the world where money can outweigh talent. What is disappointing and in my opinion, the fundamental problem, is that the sporting element so often took a backseat to the business side that here had to be a method put in place in order for certain teams to stop taking drivers solely based on their financial backing.”

Rossi added those decisions “whether out of greed or necessity, is what cost Colton the opportunity to make the decision for himself as to if he wanted to alter career paths and race in F1. Not points on a license.”

The system favors drivers who compete in FIA-sanctioned series. For example, Linus Lundqvist earned his Super License by winning the Indy Lights championship.

Lundqvist’s required points come via the 15 he earned for the Lights title, 10 points for finishing third in Lights last year and his 2020 victory in the FIA-governed Formula Regional Americas Championship, which earned him 18 points.

That gave the 23-year-old Swede a total of 43 points, three more than needed for the license.

Herta, meanwhile, ended the IndyCar season with 32 points. He can still earn a Super License by picking up one point for any free practice sessions he runs this year; McLaren holds his F1 rights and could put him in a car. Herta could also potentially run in an FIA-sanctioned winter series to pick up some points.

Michael Andretti, who has petitioned the FIA to expand its grid to add two cars for him to launch a team, said he never bothered to explore potential replacements for Herta on the IndyCar team because he was confident the Super License request would be rejected.

Andretti has been met by severe resistance from existing F1 teams and even F1 itself in his hope to add an 11th team. Andretti could still get on the grid by purchasing an existing team and he’d like to build his program around Herta, who is under contract in IndyCar to Andretti through 2023.