Devin Moran took home the win at Pittsburgh Pennsylvania Motor Speedway for the first night of the Pittsburgher, but all eyes were on Ricky Thornton Jr. after he suffered a right rear flat tire while leading and attempted to work his way back to the front.
Moran jetted to the lead from the Victory Fuel pole, but was quickly tracked down by a hard-charging Ricky Thornton Jr. who started in fourth, fell to fifth then found something on the outside and made quick work getting to Moran and then passing him. Thornton then paced the field to the halfway mark of the 30-lap race when he suffered a right rear flat tire coming out of turn 2. He subsequently hit the outside wall and had to make his way to the hot pit.
Moran was able to reclaim the lead due to Thornton’s misfortune, and never looked book leading the final 16 laps of the race and claiming the $10,000 check. However, he did not come out of the night with the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series points lead as Thornton put on a whale of a show in the closing laps moving from 18th to finish with a 9th place finish.
Thornton still retains the lead, but instead of an 80 point advantage he now only has a 5 point lead over Moran.
In Victory Lane, Moran admitted he was caught off guard when Thornton used the high side to get by him, but quickly picked up where to go as he settled in behind him, “We started off really strong at the beginning of the year but then struggled a bit through the middle as we tried different things and figured out what to do at this point. I honestly didn’t expect the top to be that good, because it looked like there was just dust up there, but Ricky Thornton is Ricky Thornton for a reason. It was a bummer he got a flat, but we were lucky enough to take advantage of his misfortune. Once he got up there and burned that top in, and after he took the lead, I knew where to go. I felt like I was pretty good up there behind him.”
As for Thornton’s team, they shared on Facebook, “Tough tough night but Ricky did a heck of a job rebounding. Started 4th, fell to 5th, got the lead & had a heck of a race car. A right rear tire came apart & sent us into the wall. driver went to the tail and salvaged a 9th place run through the field. Heartbreaking to give up any cushion we had in the championship, but this team is resilient & we will be alright.”
Tonight’s 37th annual Pittsburgher promises to be a whale of a show if last night’s race is any indication and second place finisher Brandon Sheppard even noted he was mainly testing for the $50,000 to-win race tonight in his podium interview with FloRacing, “We were definitely trying some things for the long-run race tomorrow night. I felt like I was getting better in the longer runs we had, but we didn’t get many long runs in, so we’ll be ready tomorrow. We definitely need to fine-tune this a little bit, but all in all, the longer we went, the better we did. So with a longer race, we will be really good.”
0 Comments