By Ben Deatherage
BISMARCK, N.D. — Nothing about Sierra Davenport’s night at Dacotah Speedway on June 26 suggested history was about to be made.
The 17-year-old had started near the front of her heat race and gone backward.
Way backward.
“I struggled really bad in the heat race,” Davenport said. “I think I started second and finished pretty much last.”
Back in the pits, Davenport and her team went to work. A few adjustments were made to her No. 51S Sunoco IMCA Stock Car before the feature.
Then everything changed.
Davenport found the speed that had been missing earlier in the evening and drove to the first IMCA Stock Car feature victory of her young career.
In doing so, the Bismarck teenager became the first female driver from North Dakota to win an IMCA Stock Car feature.
“It felt really good to finally get that win,” she said. “I made a couple of adjustments for the feature, and it worked out great.”
The accomplishment came in only Davenport’s second season racing a full-sized car.
But racing itself has been part of her life for much longer.
And the number on the side of her Stock Car tells much of that story.
Seventeen-year-old Sierra Davenport, of Burlington, N.D., celebrates in victory lane with her team after earning her first career Sunoco IMCA Stock Car feature win June 26 at Dacotah Speedway in Mandan, N.D. (Photo by LTE Photography & Designs)
Three Generations and No. 51
Long before Sierra Davenport climbed behind the wheel, her grandfather Dave was a racer.
Dave raced Street Stocks beginning in the late 1970s and into the early 1980s before returning to competition around 1991 and 1992. He wasn’t the only Davenport who caught the racing bug. Dave and his brothers, Tom and Dale, carried Nos. 51, 61 and 71.
According to A.J., the origins weren’t particularly complicated. They were farm kids looking for somewhere to compete rather than driving “like animals on back country roads.”
Dave passed away before Sierra was born, but the family’s racing tradition continued through his son, A.J.
The No. 51 belonged to Dave. A.J. carried it into his own racing career, and today Sierra carries the family number as No. 51S.
A.J.’s own driving career began in 1997, and he raced off and on through 2003. For two of those seasons, father and son even shared the same race car — although it required both of them to drive it at the same time.
In 2002 and 2003, Dave and A.J. competed together in a Road Hog, a unique two-person race car in which the driver controlled the steering and brakes while the passenger operated the gas pedal. A.J. believes they were the only team that switched positions each week, allowing both father and son to take turns controlling each half of the car.
A.J. later dabbled in Modifieds from 2009 through 2012 before spending several years away from racing, but Sierra kept wanting to go to the track.
In 2018, A.J. put the old Road Hog back together as a Hobby Stock and returned to competition.
By then, Sierra’s interest in racing was growing.
“My dad had a Hobby Stock, and he took me to a few races,” Davenport said. “I loved it and saw the little Slingshots, and they looked like fun, and we put one together.”
Her first season came in 2020 in a Junior Slingshot, making a handful of starts at Jamestown. A year later, Davenport moved into a Legend.
That’s when A.J. made a change of his own.
He sold the Hobby Stock and bought a Legend, but there was a purpose behind the move beyond simply getting himself another race car.
He wanted to understand exactly what his daughter was experiencing behind the wheel. By racing a Legend himself, A.J. could learn how the cars drove and how changes affected their handling, giving him a better understanding of what Sierra needed to become faster.
Sierra spent four seasons in the division. By her final year, racing had become considerably more serious. Davenport made 43 starts, recorded 23 top-five finishes and traveled all the way to Pennsylvania for the Legends Nationals, where she finished second in the feature.
Then came another major transition.
In 2025, Davenport climbed into a full-sized race car for the first time and began competing in a Sunoco IMCA Stock Car.
“My first race in a Stock Car was a lot of fun,” she said. “I don’t really get nervous.”
Learning how to make one fast proved to be the bigger challenge.
“The most difficult thing has been figuring out the setup stuff,” Davenport said.
Sierra and A.J. attended the Bob Harris chassis school during the offseason, an experience that helped considerably as they continued learning the intricacies of Stock Car setup.
The equipment underneath her also began to improve.
“Last year we ran everyone’s used tires and old shocks,” she said. “This year we got six new shocks and we’re running new tires, and that’s helped a lot.”
Another important piece of the program stays within the family, with A.J. building their engines.
The father-daughter combination took another step forward in 2026 when they tackled the Dakota Classic Modified Tour for the first time. The trip gave Sierra an opportunity to compete against large fields while visiting tracks she had never raced at before.
“There’s a lot of cars every night, but I made five out of the six features, so that was a big accomplishment,” Davenport said. “It was a lot of fun going all over with my dad.”
The traveling didn’t end with the tour.
Every Sunday, the family made the trip north to Nodak Speedway in Minot, where Davenport finished fifth in track points. She has also steadily remained among the top five in North Dakota state points.
Now she wants to take the No. 51S even farther.
“We want to go to Super Nationals next year,” Davenport said. “I wanted to go this year, but it didn’t work out. I want to go to Winter Nationals in Arizona.”
Her education gives the family some flexibility to chase those goals. Davenport is entering her senior year and is home-schooled, allowing her schedule to better accommodate the demands of racing.
When she isn’t studying or working on the race car, there is plenty waiting for her on the family ranch, where she works alongside her mother and stepfather. The chores change with the seasons, from checking fences and feeding cows during the North Dakota winter to baling during the summer.
Even the offseason isn’t much of an offseason.
Davenport enjoys taking trips with her father, but winter also means returning to the shop and getting the No. 51S prepared early for another season.
A.J. Davenport (51A) races alongside his daughter, Sierra Davenport (51S), during Sunoco IMCA Stock Car competition at Nodak Speedway in Minot, N.D. The father-daughter duo continues a Davenport family racing tradition that began with Sierra’s late grandfather, Dave, whose No. 51 has been carried through three generations. (Photo by MAK’n Photography)
Home in North Dakota’s Capital
The place Davenport calls home has been a gathering point on the northern Plains for centuries.
The Mandan inhabited the region long before European American settlement, with the Hidatsa and Arikara also having deep connections to the area.
The modern community traces its beginnings to 1872, when a settlement called Missouri Crossing was established along the Missouri River. The name reflected the area’s connection to the Lewis and Clark Expedition, which had passed through the region during its exploration of the Louisiana Purchase decades earlier.
The community was later known as Edwinton in honor of Northern Pacific Railway engineer-in-chief Edwin Ferry Johnson.
Another name arrived in 1873.
Northern Pacific officials renamed the community Bismarck after German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, hoping the name would help attract German settlers and investment in the railroad. The city remains unusual among American capitals as the only U.S. state capital named for a foreign statesman.
Bismarck became the capital of Dakota Territory in 1883 and retained its status when North Dakota achieved statehood in 1889.
For Davenport, however, home is considerably less complicated.
She points visitors toward the mall and has a few recommendations when it’s time to eat.
Jack’s Steakhouse and HuHot Mongolian Grill are among her favorites, along with Charras & Tequila for Mexican food.
Bismarck is also the home base from which Davenport and her family have built a racing program capable of making North Dakota IMCA history.
Davenport also knows none of it has been accomplished alone.
She credits her dad, A.J.; her mom, Ashley; Mikey; her grandmother; pit crew member Travis; her aunt and uncle; her uncle Cody, and the many others who have helped along the way.
Her sponsors include Disrud Ranch, Doepke Farms, Brener Cattle, Bird Ranch, Agittator Engines, Mr. Xterior Portable Pressure Wash, Hager Farms, DD North, and Missouri Valley Ag.
Three generations after Dave Davenport carried No. 51, his granddaughter has added an S to the family number.
At 17 years old, she’s already added a piece of history to it, too.
