kendo mvc grid with a custom datasource that has null id rows - kendo-grid

Question

I want to open this question with the statement that i have no say in changing the datasource, which is a function in the database and is used elsewhere as well.
I have a kendo grid that i am loading from a viewmodel like this:
var data = db.Database.SqlQuery<OdometerLogsViewModel>($#"
SELECT ID, OrderNum, Carrier, Driver, Truck, StartTime, EndTime, StartOdometer, EndOdometer, Mileage, Type, Locked
FROM dbo.fnMileageLog(isnull('{StartDate}', getdate()), coalesce('{EndDate}', '{StartDate}', getdate()), {filterCarrierID}, {filterDriverID}, {filterTruckID}) ml
WHERE ('{filterType}' LIKE 'Both' OR ml.Type LIKE '{filterType}%')
AND ({id} = 0 or {id} = ml.ID)
ORDER BY Truck, StartTime DESC
this loads into the grid just fine. However i noticed when my alternate rows, which represent "dead head" of a truck and therefore have no order number, are present (not filtered out), editing a row takes a long time.
Upon inspection, it turns out that the grid is trying to "create" a new record every time i hit save for all of the null id entries. 43 of them on one page i tested. I verified this in the grid datasource requestStart event. You can not preventDefault, evidently, in that event. How do i prevent the grid from doing this? I am not opposed to hacky methods.

Answer 1

I got in touch with Telerik and they told me that Telerik internally does an IsNew() check on each model instance (each row) of the dataset. Since my alternating rows are not editable and are only there to identify empty miles driven, the solution was to simply modify the sql query to populate the null IDs with a fake value. We chose -1.
var data = db.Database.SqlQuery<OdometerLogsViewModel>($#"
SELECT CASE WHEN ID IS NULL THEN -1 ELSE ID END ID , OrderNum, Carrier, Driver, Truck, StartTime, EndTime, StartOdometer, EndOdometer, Mileage, Type, Locked
FROM dbo.fnMileageLog(isnull('{StartDate}', getdate()), coalesce('{EndDate}', '{StartDate}', getdate()), {filterCarrierID}, {filterDriverID}, {filterTruckID}) ml
WHERE ('{filterType}' LIKE 'Both' OR ml.Type LIKE '{filterType}%')
AND ({id} = 0 or {id} = ml.ID)
ORDER BY Truck, StartTime DESC