CONNEAUT, Ohio — Ricky Thornton Jr. led wire-to-wire in Friday night’s Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series “Great Lakes 50” at Raceway 7.
Thornton earned $12,000 for his 22nd series win of the season.
Devin Moran finished in second, followed by Jonathan Davenport, Tim McCreadie and Daulton Wilson.
Thornton rolled from his outside front starting spot to take the lead at the drop of the green. After a multi-car accident before a lap was complete resulted in a complete restart, Thornton again would take the lead. Garrett Alberson gave chase in the second spot for the first 17 laps of the race until Hudson O’Neal was able to get by him the on the 18th circuit.
As O’Neal ran in the runner-up position, he was several car lengths back of Thornton, when Logan Roberson, who was running eighth slowed on lap 38 drawing a caution flag.
O’Neal would bring out the last caution of the race with a left rear flat tire while running in third. Moran had just passed O’Neal for second when misfortune struck as he pitted for a new tire. O’Neal would then come back through the field to finish in seventh in the final rundown.
Moran could not stay with Thornton in the last 12 laps as Thornton dominated the rest of the way pulling out to a 4.196 seconds advantage at the checkers.
It was Thornton’s second ever appearance at the Northeast Ohio venue, scoring his 27th career Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series win.
“It’s pretty cool to come up here in the stands and see everybody. On that one restart I was more worried about Hud [O’Neal]. I saw him back there on the board,” Thornton said. “My crew guys were letting me know he was closing in before that yellow came out. It stinks that he got that flat, it ruined his night. Overall, it was a good night for us. I felt like we qualified as good as we were going to. For us to be able to win the heat and start on the front row of the feature, it shows how good my guys work, we had a good car all night.”
Moran, with his second-place finish closes to within 15 points of Brandon Overton for the fourth position in the championship standings heading into the Pittsburgher Saturday night. “The pressure is on I love it,” Moran said. “I didn’t know how I was going to run tonight. I have been here a couple of times and not done so good. I have never really been that good here. Obviously, I wasn’t that good compared to Ricky tonight, but we just squeezed out that second, so we have given ourselves a shot to get in the final four.”
tonight to come out of here with a top three is good.”
The finish:
Ricky Thornton Jr, Devin Moran, Jonathan Davenport, Tim McCreadie, Daulton Wilson, Garrett Alberson, Hudson O’Neal, Max Blair, Spencer Hughes, Boom Briggs, Ross Robinson, Tyler Erb, Brandon Overton, Earl Pearson Jr., Matthew Lux, Bob Dorman, Bump Hedman, Logan Roberson, Darrell Bossard, Logan Jaquay, Kevin Santee, Drake Troutman, Brayton Santee.