Thornton Wires Penultimate Winter Nationals Feature

Ricky Thornton Jr. (left) and son Asher celebrate in victory lane Friday night at Ocala Speedway. (Heath Lawson photo)

OCALA, Fla. – Reigning Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series champion Ricky Thornton Jr. led from start to finish Friday night during the Wieland Winter Nationals at Ocala Speedway.

Thornton’s wire-to-wire performance, his 45th series win, netted the Martinsville, Ind., native $12,000.

Hudson O’Neal took the second spot on lap 17 from Devin Moran and held it for the rest of the race, securing his best tour finish of the year.

Moran rounded out the Big River Steel podium in third, with Bobby Pierce finishing fourth and Jonathan Davenport completing the top five.

Thornton moved for the lead on the opening lap, passing Moran for the top spot. Thornton and Moran then ran first and second until Brian Shirley, who started third, moved into the runner-up spot on lap five.

Unfortunately, a flat right rear tire for Shirley on lap 16 ended his hopes for a maiden series win. Moran had moved into second, just ahead of Shirley before the latter’s flat tire.

On lap 17, Moran saw O’Neal pass him to take the second position. O’Neal, Moran, and Bobby Pierce then battled fiercely for the next several laps, while Thornton maintained a healthy lead over that trio.

Ultimately, Thornton crossed the finish line in first by 2.503 seconds, reaching victory lane for the third time this season and the fourth time overall at Ovala.

“I was more frustrated that I lapped Jimmy (Owens) during that lap when I was approaching the caution,” admitted Thornton in victory lane. “I really didn’t want to see the yellow; I felt like I had a great pace going, and after that, it was like I needed to drive hard for a bit. I mean, it really highlights how good this Longhorn/Bilstein car is. I feel like we are picking up right where we left off last year. Hopefully, we can maintain this speed and have a solid run (Saturday).

“I was trying to get myself clear of the lapped cars,” Thornton added. “I felt like I could enter (turn) one and slide across to really get a good run off of two. I think I got to the (No.) 79 car, but he was actually better than I was off the bottom, so I moved down and watched Jimmy pass about four cars off turn two on the wall. I thought I’d better get back up there.

“The car’s been really good. I felt like we needed this one; we’ve been close since we put this new one in together.”

O’Neal grabbed his first tour podium in second after a hard battle with Moran and Pierce for much of the race.

“It’s great to have this run,” tipped O’Neal. “Like I said earlier, I felt like we’ve had some speed, but we just haven’t really been able to do anything with it. We don’t qualify very well, and it makes it really tough. I especially felt that if we ever got in the position to start up front, we would run up front, and we did tonight.

“Ricky was a little better than us. It was a good first night to be here on the podium, so we’ll go back and work on it to see if we can improve a bit for tomorrow night.”

Moran continued his consistent season performance thus far by taking third at the finish.

“I just need to restart better. I felt like we had a really good car,” said Moran. “I don’t know if we could have kept up with Ricky and the others every single restart; I would have to work to pass them. Hudson was good enough that I couldn’t get by him again, but you can't complain about a third-place finish, especially with these guys.

“It seems like there are different winners almost every night, and someone goes on a streak. We need to work on it a little bit. We picked up our qualifying game tonight, and we just have to keep working on (restarts).”

Sixth through 10th were Kyle Bronson, Dake Troutman, Daulton Wilson, Bradon Sheppard, and Max Blair.

Davenport moved to the top of the series standings Friday night, taking a 10-point edge over Moran after eight races.

The finish:

A-Main (50 laps): 1. 20RT-Ricky Thornton Jr. [2]; 2. 71-Hudson O'Neal [4]; 3. 99-Devin Moran [1]; 4. 32-Bobby Pierce [6]; 5. 49-Jonathan Davenport [10]; 6. 40B-Kyle Bronson [5]; 7. 22*-Drake Troutman [13]; 8. 18D-Daulton Wilson [24]; 9. 1-Brandon Sheppard [9]; 10. 111-Max Blair [11]; 11. 58-Garrett Alberson [15]; 12. 1T-Tyler Erb [18]; 13. 93-Carson Ferguson [12]; 14. 76-Brandon Overton [8]; 15. 20-Jimmy Owens [16]; 16. 79-Donald McIntosh [27]; 17. 9-Tim McCreadie [23]; 18. 6-Clay Harris [17]; 19. 7-Ross Robinson [25]; 20. 3S-Brian Shirley [3]; 21. 28-Dennis Erb Jr. [21]; 22. 15K-Wil Herrington [20]; 23. 76N-Blair Nothdurft [7]; 24. 99B-Boom Briggs [22]; 25. 18-Chase Junghans [14]; 26. 16-Tyler Bruening [26]; 27. 43-Derrick Stewart [19].