The opening night of the Wild West Shootout delivered an exciting race with Hudson O’Neal and Ricky Thornton Jr. dueling each other for the lead while Ryan Gustin and Cade Dillard charged through the field for top 5 finishes.

Other storylines coming out of the race were Jonathan Davenport exiting early due to some kind of mechanical failure, and a number of drivers fighting tire wear issues and having to make changes including Garrett Alberson, Tyler Erb, and Ethan Dotson.

At the end of the night Ricky Thornton Jr. was able to get the best of O’Neal.

Thornton started off strong from the pole and led the first 15 laps, but O’Neal who started fourth quickly worked his way to second and kept within striking distance of him. However, he never got to him in the first green flag run. Meanwhile, Gustin who started in 18th had worked his way up 10 spots to 8th. While Dillard, who started in 16th was not too far behind in 10th.

O’Neal got a chance to make a move for the lead on the first restart after a caution for an Ethan Dotson flat tire, and he made the most of it. O’Neal got a monster run through 3 and 4 and drove right past Thornton on the outside as the two came across the start/finish line. In fact, after passing Thornton he quickly pulled out to a six-car length lead. While O’Neal pulled away early, Thornton slowly began reeling him back in over the course of the next 7 to 8 laps. After closing the gap Thornton continued to stalk O’Neal as they got into lap traffic. It looked like he was going to pounce with about 22 laps to go after O’Neal drifted a little high working on a lap car, but he was able to get it back together and maintain his half second lead over Thornton.

The cat and mouse game continued for the next few laps until a caution for Jake O’Neil with a flat right tire came out with 16 laps to go in the 50 lap feature. That caution would breed a number of cautions. Just two laps later Tyler Erb suffered a flat and drew another caution. 4 laps after that Garrett Alberson had a flat as well drawing another caution.

Thornton used the plethora of restarts to finally make his move. With 10 laps to go, he threw a slider into turns 1 and 2 and was able to clear O’Neal. However, O’Neal did not got away in silence. He crossed Thornton over down the back stretch, but overshot turns 3 and 4 a little bit allowing Thornton to drive underneath him come to the start/finish line.

Jake O’Neil, who had stormed back through the field after his flat tire and was challenging for third drew another caution as his tire flew off his car. On the ensuing restart O’Neal gave THornton everything he could handle, but was unable to complete the pass only getting to Thornton’s door. Thornton eventually was able to gap and looked like he was going to run away with it.

However, another caution, this one for Kyle Beard gave O’Neal another chance on a restart. However, THornton shot out to a 4-car length lead and never looked back and ran away with it over the final five laps of the race.

In a post race interview with FloRacing, O’Neal explained how Thornton best him, “Ricky did a great job. We just kept having restarts and I knew that I kinda had ran my tires pretty hard there through the middle part of that race. You don’t know if you’re going to have a caution or not. So I was just going trying to lead every lap I could for the lap money. Just trying to get away from him that way when we got into lap traffic I had a little bit of a buffer.”

“Yeah, we just kept having restarts and he kept getting to practice and practice trying to get a run on me down through here and finally he did. And it just kinda caught me off guard really. I seen his nose a couple times on the restarts before, but like I said he did a great job. Probably more so than anything had a little bit more tire left than I did there at the end,” he said.

As for Ricky Thornton Jr. he shared how he was able to get around O’Neal and secure the win, “Before the yellow came out I ran across the top down here the one lap. I was like, ‘Man it feels good.’ But my brother was like, ‘Nah, you’re good just stay what you’re doing.’ I don’t know if Hud just got a really good start or what. I heard him, but I’m like, ‘Man, I can’t move out now because if I move out now we’re going to wreck both of us.’ He got by and I could pace him in traffic. And I could tell he pry was running 75% and I was running pretty hard. I’m like, ‘Man, I just got to make sure where we get to these lap cars I can stay with him and try to make a move.'”

“I felt like I was able to start making a couple of moves and then the yellow came back out,” he continued. “And I’m like, ‘Man, there pry goes the race.’ And I felt like I got a couple of good starts and could kind of get to left his rear in turn 1. I’m like, ‘Man, if I can stay in the moisture strip down the whole front straightaway and turn when I get down to turn 1 you’re like, ‘Hell, you got to slide him.’ We didn’t come all this way to run second. We were able to do it.”

“Whenever I slid him I knew he was going to cross me and I figured if I could race him hard into 3, make him overcharge turn 3, and then stop and turn and hopefully catch enough traction off 4 I’d be able to drive back by him. And it worked out. Then the yellow came out and I don’t know if it was good or bad that that yellow came out, but I was like, ‘Alright now I gotta make sure I hit this restart right and don’t let him do the exact same thing to me.’ It worked out for us,” he concluded.

Official Finishing Order

1. Ricky Thornton Jr.
2. Hudson O’Neal
3. Cade Dillard
4. Ryan Gustin
5. Mike Marlar
6. Clay Stuckey
7. Garrett Alberson
8. Drake Troutman
9. Ethan Dotson
10. Kyle Beard
11. Tyler Erb
12. Dillon McCowan
13. Bobby Pierce
14. Jake O’Neil
15. R.C. Whitwell
16. Daniel Adam
17. Bricen James
18. Eston Whisler
19. Kylan Garner
20. Chase Junghans
21. Tyler Peterson
22. Brandon Sheppard
23. Billy Moyer Sr.
24. Dustin Sorensen
25. Jonathan Davenport

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