Kertus Davis

Kertus Davis
Kertus Davis
	Davis at New Hampshire Motor Speedway 2008
Born	February 26, 1981 (age 43); Gaffney, South Carolina
Achievements	1998 South Carolina State Karting Championship
NASCAR Xfinity Series career
	117 races run over 8 years
2009 position	59th
Best finish	31st (2005)
First race	2001 Nazareth 200 (Nazareth)
Last race	2009 U.S. Cellular 250 (Iowa)
	Statistics current as of July 2, 2012.

Kertus Davis (born February 26, 1981)^[1] is a former NASCAR driver. He is currently the competition director for JD Motorsports.

Prior to NASCAR/USAR

Davis began racing in go-karts at the age of eight, competing in his hometown of Gaffney around various tracks. He raced in the karts for a number of years, and finished 3rd in the World Karting Association finals at the age of 17. In 1998, Davis began racing Late Model Stock Cars in various Southeastern tracks, gaining experience and a handful of top-five finishes. He mostly competed at Myrtle Beach Speedway, Greenville-Pickens Speedway, and Timmonsville Speedway. During the 1999 season, he made three starts in the USAR ProCup Series.

He competed for Rookie of the Year in 2000 in the USAR Pro-Cup Competing in 20 events, Davis finished the season 17th in points with top ten finishes. In 2001, he finished 11th in the Southern Division points standing with eight top-ten finishes. After a part-time USAR run in 2002, he joined Premiere Motorsports to run a full-time schedule 2003. He won his first race at Smithton, Pennsylvania and finished third in the Northern Division points, thirteenth for the entire sanctioning body.

Early NASCAR career

Davis made his NASCAR debut in 2001 at Nazareth Speedway for Jimmy Means. He qualified the No. 52 Broadway Motors Ford Taurus in 34th place, but finished 36th after an early engine failure. In the next two races, he finished 42nd at Dover International Speedway and 40th at the Milwaukee Mile. He made the switch over to the No. 77 Gestener Ford for Moy Racing at the second Dover race, where he finished 34th after a crash.

Davis made five starts in 2002. He ran the No. 77 Docutech/Gestetner Ford in his first 2002 race at Richmond, and had the best weekend of his career at the time with a 29th place start and 26th-place finish. For the rest of the season, Davis only drove the No. 0 Chevrolet for his father's race team, Davis Motorsports. In four starts, his best finish was a 24th at Memphis Motorsports Park. Davis did not race at all in 2003, due to his USAR commitments, but he played a large role as Davis Motorsports began to run full-time in the series. He worked in the shop and every now and then on the pit box^{[citation needed]}, as the team made its first full season.

He raced again in 2004, starting at Indianapolis Raceway Park for his father's team, where he had a 29th-place finish, followed by a 27th at Dover and a 34th at Darlington. Davis moved to the No. 0 full-time in 2005, with RaceGirl serving as sponsor. He failed to qualify for five races, but had a career-best tenth-place run at Talladega Superspeedway, and finished thirty-first in points. He also made one start in the No. 12 Supercuts/Hot Tamales Dodge at Texas Motor Speedway for FitzBradshaw Racing, but finished in 40th due to a transmission failure. For the 2006 season, Davis attempted to race full-time. The team used former Busch Series champion Randy LaJoie to get in the race at Mexico, and at Atlanta, MacDonald Motorsports aided the Davis team with MacDonald's pit crew. Davis also took one-race deals, driving the No. 34 Sport Clips Chevrolet for Frank Cicci Racing at Darlington, the No. 43 Ollie's Bargain Outlet Dodge for the Curb Agajanian Performance Group at Dover, and at Nashville, he prepared the No. 20 Rockwell Automation car for NEXTEL Cup driver Denny Hamlin. He returned to his own car at Milwaukee, where he finished out the season. He also attempted races for Morgan Shepherd, CJM Racing, and Front Row Motorsports at the Nextel Cup level, but did not qualify for any of those races.

2007–present

In 2007, Davis signed to drive for Kevin Harvick Incorporated in the No. 77 Dollar General Chevy for 13 races, sharing the car with Bobby Labonte and Kevin Harvick. Davis ran at Fontana starting 33rd but collided with Eric McClure who ironically was driving the No. 0 car that Davis drove before. He recovered to finish 30th, last on lead lap. He then made his first road course start at Mexico where he started 37th and finished 31st one lap down. He was replaced by Ron Hornaday Jr. prior to the race at Milwaukee. Shortly after that, it was announced that Davis had been released by KHI, due to Dollar General wanting only Cup drivers in the car. He ran the rest of the season in the No. 01 car fielded by his family team.

For 2008, Davis began the season in the No. 0 car, but moved over to the No. 01 after one race with RaceGirl sponsoring. This came after his team in the opening race of 2008 was penalized due to an illegal oil tank. The team was penalized 25 driver & owner points, and crew chief Gene Allnut was suspended for 6 races. In the interim, Davis had the 1st ever female crew chief in NASCAR's top touring series at Las Vegas.^[2] Kertus at Talladega in 2008 avoided the "Big One" again like in 2005 and he finished 12th on the lead lap falling out of the top 10 in turn 4. Following the race at Nashville where he blew his engine, Davis left his father's team to pursue other racing options. He was 24th in points at the time. He spent the rest of the season driving the No. 49 for Jay Robinson. In 2009, Davis returned to Jay Robinson Racing in the No. 49 car. GetMoreVacations.com sponsored the car for a few races in the beginning of the season. After 14 races in 2009 with JRR, Davis went back to his father's team to drive the No. 04 Chevy. He did not race in 2010, but served as crew chief for the No. 0 JD Motorsports Chevrolet driven by Chrissy Wallace in the Aaron's 312 at Talladega;. in 2011 he became the team's competition director.

Motorsports career results

NASCAR

(key) (Bold – Pole position awarded by qualifying time. Italics – Pole position earned by points standings or practice time. * – Most laps led.)

Nextel Cup Series

NASCAR Nextel Cup Series results
Year	Team	No.	Make	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20	21	22	23	24	25	26	27	28	29	30	31	32	33	34	35	36	NNCC	Pts	Ref
2006	Shepherd Racing Ventures	89	Dodge	DAY	CAL	LVS	ATL	BRI	MAR	TEX	PHO	TAL	RCH DNQ	DAR																										NA	-	^[3]
	CJM Racing	72	Dodge												CLT DNQ	DOV	POC	MCH	SON	DAY DNQ	CHI	NHA	POC	IND	GLN	MCH	BRI
	Front Row Motorsports	34	Chevy																									CAL DNQ	RCH	NHA	DOV	KAN	TAL	CLT	MAR	ATL	TEX	PHO	HOM

Nationwide Series

NASCAR Nationwide Series results
Year	Team	No.	Make	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20	21	22	23	24	25	26	27	28	29	30	31	32	33	34	35	NNSC	Pts	Ref
2001	Jimmy Means Racing	52	Ford	DAY	CAR	LVS	ATL	DAR	BRI	TEX	NSH	TAL	CAL	RCH	NHA	NZH 35	CLT	DOV 42	KEN	MLW 40	GLN	CHI	GTY	PPR	IRP	MCH	BRI	DAR	RCH										80th	199	^[4]
2001	PRW Racing	77	Ford																											DOV 34	KAN	CLT	MEM	PHO	CAR	HOM			80th	199	^[4]
2002	PRW Racing	77	Ford	DAY	CAR	LVS	DAR	BRI	TEX	NSH	TAL	CAL	RCH 26	NHA	NZH	CLT	DOV	NSH	KEN																				67th	353	^[5]
2002	Davis Motorsports	0	Chevy																	MLW 32	DAY	CHI	GTY DNQ	PPR	IRP	MCH	BRI	DAR 31	RCH	DOV	KAN	CLT	MEM 24	ATL	CAR 41	PHO	HOM DNQ		67th	353	^[5]
2004	Davis Motorsports	0	Chevy	DAY	CAR	LVS	DAR	BRI	TEX	NSH	TAL	CAL	GTY	RCH	NZH	CLT	DOV	NSH	KEN	MLW	DAY	CHI	NHA	PPR	IRP 29	MCH	BRI	CAL	RCH	DOV 27	KAN	CLT DNQ	MEM DNQ	ATL	PHO DNQ	DAR 34	HOM DNQ		93rd	219	^[6]
2005	Davis Motorsports	0	Chevy	DAY 34	CAL 42	MXC	LVS 42	ATL 28	NSH 32	BRI 26	TEX 40	PHO 25	TAL 10	DAR 33	RCH DNQ	CLT 37	DOV 27	NSH 36	KEN 26	MLW 39	DAY 21	CHI DNQ	NHA 38	PPR 41	GTY 40	IRP 30	GLN	MCH 42	BRI 33	CAL 35	RCH DNQ	DOV 25	KAN DNQ	CLT DNQ	MEM 28		PHO 31	HOM 41	31st	1804	^[7]
2005	FitzBradshaw Racing	12	Dodge																																	TEX 40			31st	1804	^[7]
2006	Davis Motorsports	0	Chevy	DAY DNQ	CAL 42	MXC	LVS DNQ	ATL 35	BRI 40	TEX DNQ	NSH 43	PHO 41	TAL 32	RCH DNQ						MLW 36	DAY 31	CHI 34	NHA 31	MAR 42	GTY 39	IRP	GLN	MCH 40	BRI 38	CAL 35	RCH 42	DOV 41	KAN 36	CLT DNQ		TEX 37	PHO 40	HOM DNQ	40th	1119	^[8]
	Frank Cicci Racing	34	Chevy												DAR 42	CLT DNQ
	Curb Agajanian Performance Group	43	Dodge														DOV 27	NSH	KEN
	Joe Gibbs Racing	20	Chevy																																MEM QL^†
2007	Kevin Harvick Incorporated	77	Chevy	DAY	CAL 30	MXC 31	LVS	ATL	BRI	NSH 37	TEX	PHO	TAL	RCH	DAR	CLT	DOV	NSH 32	KEN 30	MLW	NHA	DAY	CHI	GTY															67th	584	^[9]
	Phoenix Racing	1	Chevy																						IRP QL^‡	CGV	GLN
	D.D.L. Motorsports	01	Chevy																									MCH 43	BRI	CAL 33	RCH DNQ	DOV	KAN 43	CLT 42	MEM DNQ	TEX 41	PHO 41	HOM DNQ
2008	JD Motorsports	0		DAY DNQ													DOV 36																						34th	1639	^[10]
	JD Motorsports	01		DAY 32	CAL 31	LVS 33	ATL 42	BRI 23	NSH 30	TEX 32	PHO 25	MXC 43	TAL 12	RCH 31	DAR 29	CLT 25		NSH 32
	Jay Robinson Racing	49	Chevy																KEN 37		NHA 35	DAY 42	CHI 42	GTY 43	IRP 39	CGV	GLN	MCH DNQ	BRI DNQ	CAL 43	RCH 42	DOV 37	KAN 40	CLT DNQ	MEM 39	TEX 43	PHO 42	HOM 41
	CFK Motorsports	73	Dodge																	MLW 42
2009	Jay Robinson Racing	49	Chevy	DAY 38	CAL 25	LVS DNQ	BRI DNQ	TEX DNQ	NSH 40	PHO 39	TAL 22	RCH 42	DAR 40	CLT DNQ	DOV 36	NSH 35	KEN																						59th	743	^[11]
	JD Motorsports	04	Chevy															MLW 42	NHA DNQ	DAY 33	CHI 42	GTY DNQ	IRP 42
	JD Motorsports	0	Chevy																					IOW 37	GLN	MCH DNQ	BRI DNQ	CGV	ATL	RCH	DOV	KAN	CAL	CLT	MEM	TEX	PHO	HOM
^† - Qualified for Denny Hamlin · ^‡ - Qualified for J. J. Yeley

ARCA Re/Max Series