Ricky Thornton Jr. confirmed he’ll return to compete with the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series for 2026, but also revealed he has some other opportunities in the works including an off-road truck.
In an interview with FloRacing’s Kyle McFadden at the Performance Racing Industry (PRI) show in Indianapolis, Thornton shared, “We were talking to Ray and a couple of guys. I think we’re going to go Southern All Stars. No, I’m just kidding. No, we’re going to do Lucas again. We’re going to do all the Flo stuff again. Hit as much World of Outlaws shows and different shows. Outside of that, obviously, [Jeff] Hoker, he’s promoting a bunch around Iowa. So we’re going to try to hit all of those.”
Outside of late models, Thornton did share one bit of surprising, he’s been offered to race an off-road truck, “Really outside of that, run the sprint car when I can. Run the midget, run the micro, the mod, stock car. I got an offer to run an off road truck so we might do that. Kind of a lot of little different things. So hopefully we can put them all together.”
What’s @RThornton20rt think of Flo taking ownership of the Lucas Oil Late Model tour?
Touches on having Anthony Burroughs back at crew chief and how he has an offer to test an off-road truck 🤔 pic.twitter.com/gwI8Mj8E1n
— Kyle McFadden (@ByKyleMcFadden) December 12, 2025
Thornton is obviously one of the best dirt late model drivers in the country winning the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series in 2024. He had a dominating performance in 2023 winning 23 races, putting together 41 top 5s and 42 top 10s in 52 features. Unfortunately, his car was wounded in the one-race championship at Eldora and he finished third behind Hudson O’Neal and Devin Moran.
He put together another solid year this winning finishing second in the points behind Devin Moran. He had 14 wins, 34 top 5s, and 38 top 10s in 46 feature races. Outside of Lucas, he won the coveted World 100 at Eldora in September.
Thornton also turned heads when he finished 12 in the Western World prelim race on Friday and 9th on Saturday during the finale with the USAC AMSOIL National Sprint Car Championship. Thornton won Western World Rookie of the Year honors for his performance.
He also had prominent wins in an IMCA Stock Car at Boone County Speedway for the 5th Annual Tanner Pelster Memorial. In a modified he dominated at the Gateway Dirt Nationals this past weekend winning his preliminary race on Friday and then the main feature on Saturday.
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