DAVENPORT, Iowa — Survival and tire management proved to be the key to victory on Friday night at the Davenport Speedway, as Ricky Thorton Jr. wired the field to capture the $3,000 top prize and his first career Lucas Oil MLRA feature win.
Thorton was the fast qualifier and rolled off on the outside front row alongside polesitter Tony Jackson Jr. The lead duo battled for the top spot into turn one and off the exit of turn two on the opening lap with Thorton seizing control.
The race would go green for the first half of the 30 lapper with Thorton and Jackson Jr. quickly running upon the tail of the 24-car field.
Jackson made numerous attempts to wrestle the lead away by diving low into turn one, but was never able to complete the pass on Thorton exciting turn two. The first of four caution flags waved on the 18th lap when Jake Timm slowed down the backstretch with a flat right-rear tire.
The caution for Timm, set up a series of short runs to the finish with drivers struggling to keep their right rear tires under them. Just two laps later Mike Chasteen lost a right rear followed by another caution on lap 22 when fourth-running Spencer Diercks slowed on the track and was forced to the pit area.
The final yellow flag came with two laps remaining when Mason Oberkramer came to a stop on the track with a flat right rear.
With the green back in the air, Thorton jumped back to the point and cruised to the win on the quarter-mile Davenport Speedway. Tony Toste took advantage of the late restart to slide past Jackson Jr. to score a career best runner up finish, while Jackson Jr. rounded out the top three.
Garrett Alberson advanced 18 positions to collect the Casey’s Hard Charger of the race and fourth place honors while Jeremiah Hurst completed the top five.
“I could see they were kind of blowing right rears and I never felt like mine ever started chunking out real bad,” Thornton said. “One time I had a bad stumble off four and I didn’t know if it was a tire or the carburetor, so then I really started thinking. I started driving a lot straighter at the end and it felt a lot better.”
Toste rallied from sixth on the grid to secure the second spot.
“My car just started coming in at the end and I saw people were dropping out with flat tires,” noted Toste. “I was kind of trying to take it easy, but at the same time it’s hard to tell a race car driver to take it easy. I was going but I was trying to be easy on the tires.”
Tim Ward won the modified feature and Tyler Soppe topped the sport mod main event.
The finish:
Feature (30 laps): 1. 20RT-Ricky Thornton Jr[2]; 2. 91T-Tony Toste[6]; 3. 56JR-Tony Jackson Jr[1]; 4. 59-Garrett Alberson[22]; 5. 41-Jeremiah Hurst[8]; 6. 15-Justin Duty[10]; 7. 22-Daniel Hilsabeck[19]; 8. 76-Blair Nothdurft[7]; 9. 77Y-Jordan Yaggy[9]; 10. 11R-Justin Reed[20]; 11. 4G-Bob Gardner[16]; 12. 3W-Brennon Willard[17]; 13. 49T-Jake Timm[18]; 14. 55K-Chris Kratzer[13]; 15. 93-Mason Oberkramer[5]; 16. 91P-Jason Papich[11]; 17. (DNF) 32S-Chris Simpson[3]; 18. (DNF) 29-Spencer Diercks[4]; 19. (DNF) 2-Mike Chasteen Jr[14]; 20. (DNF) 17-Tim Simpson[21]; 21. (DNF) 88L-Larry Clawson[24]; 22. (DNF) 58E-Dave Eckrich[15]; 23. (DNF) 25-Chad Simpson[23]; 24. (DNF) 33F-Rickey Frankel[12]