Ricky Thornton Jr. shared an update after he returned to Ocala Speedway today to compete with the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series in a non-points race.
Thornton and his Koehler Motorsports team were struggling with speed especially during qualifying all weekend at All-Tech Raceway. The team finished 14th, 7th, and then 18th on Saturday night after going to a back up car. With those results the team currently sits in 15th place in the points standings.
After the disappointing finish on Saturday, Thornton and his team announced they were returning to North Carolina to prepare for the five races at Ocala Speedway. The team posted on Facebook, “We’ve encountered a few challenges recently, and the cars are back at our North Carolina shop where we’re addressing everything thoroughly. Our team is putting in long hours to ensure we return to the track prepared and competitive. We don’t take shortcuts — we focus on solutions and continuous improvement.”
Thornton and the team returned south yesterday, but opted to head to Golden Isles to test with Jonathan Davenport rather than compete with the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series at Ocala. Thornton shared that as well as an update on the team’s return to North Carolina. He told FloRacing’s Dustin Jarrett, “Kinda the big thing is we’ve just been off a little bit. Went back to the shop, tore our stuff down, went through, think we found a couple little things that might’ve been hindering us.”
“So we left yesterday morning and actually stopped by Golden Isles, turned some laps with JD so feel like our stuff is pretty good,” he said.
Ocala Day 2: I talked to @RThornton20rt about the team’s decision to go home and regroup for a few days. pic.twitter.com/RvsLXqyGpQ
— Dustin Jarrett (@DustinJarrett) February 25, 2026
Thornton appeared to show more speed during qualifying at Ocala tonight. However, he still qualified 10th with a time of 14.518. But that was only .2 off top qualifier Brandon Overton who ran a lap of 14.288.
He’ll have his work cut out for him in his heat race, where he starts in fifth.
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