Koehler Motorsports announced that the team and Ricky Thornton Jr. have parted ways with crew chief Anthony Burroughs.
The team shared in a post to Facebook, “Koehler Motorsports and Ricky Thornton Jr. have decided to part ways with Anthony Burroughs. We’re grateful for the opportunity to have worked alongside Anthony and wish him the very best moving forward.”
It then shared that it promoted Justin Tharp to Crew Chief, “We’re excited to have Justin Tharp step into the crew chief role. Justin brings many years of experience in the dirt late model world, and we’re confident he’ll be a great fit for our team. We’re also excited to have him stay on board.”
“Seth hunter will continue leading tire operations,” the team concluded. “We look forward to seeing everyone this weekend in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, for Lucas Oil!”
Thornton has had an up and down 2026, but has gotten hot over the last month or so with a win and a second place finish at Port Royal Speedway with the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series at the end of August. He followed that up with a second place finish in the Earl Baltes Classic at Eldora Speedway. During the World 100 the team fell victim to a flat tire on Thursday night, but rallied for a second place finish in their feature on Friday night and then a second place finish to Nick Hoffman in the Granddaddy of Them All on Saturday night.
He continued to click off top 5s after Knoxville Raceway was rained out. In the FloRacing Night in America Series race at Lincoln Park Speedway he finished second to Bobby Pierce. Most recently, he finished third in the C.J. Rayburn Memorial race at Brownstown Speedway last Friday and fourth in the Jackson 100 on Saturday with the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series. The strong performances have moved him from 6th in the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series standings to a tie for fourth with Brandon Overton.
Thornton reunited with Burroughs at Koehler Motorsports at the end of 2025 and the expectations were as high as they could be. The duo had previously worked with each other at SSI Motorsports from the middle of 2021 through July 2024. In 2023, they put together one of the most dominant years in Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series history winning 23 out of 52 features. When they were not winning they were in the top 5. They had 41 top 5s and 42 top 10s.
However, those expectations were not met this year. In fact, there had been calls on social media for Thornton to split with Burroughs earlier this year as the team failed to find the success it had in previous years. Thornton defended Burroughs during the 32nd Annual Dirt Late Model Dream at Eldora Speedway. FloRacing’s Ben Shelton asked Thornton, “We got all the experts tuned in, we got the naysayers, I’m just going to put you on the spot, the people that have said this year that Anthony Burroughs should not be your crew chief, I’m just going to tee it up and let you say whatever you want.”
“If I could slap them across the face I probably would,” Thornton replied. “We’ve just been off a little bit this year. Nothing that we’re doing. Obviously, we want to win every race just like every other guy here. We got 80-something cars here and we all have the exact same goal. I feel like any time that we don’t win we’re going to hear about and if we do win we’re going to hear about it.”
Thornton went on to show how much confidence he has in Burroughs as his crew chief, “If I didn’t want to be with him-. I was the whole reason he’s here. Obviously, Bobby and Jessica Koehler do everything they can for me. I wanted him there and I wanted Tharp there. I think we haven’t been terrible we just haven’t had the luck that I’ve had the last few years. I feel like a lot of races we ran top 5 where previous years we were winning. Any time someone says something you just put it in the back of your mind and ignore it and keep going.”
Thornton and the Koehler Motorsports will be back in action this weekend at Pittsburgh Pennsylvania Motor Speedway for the 38th Annual Pittsburgher. Racing action gets under way for the doubleheader on October 2nd and continues on October 3rd. Thornton will look to continue to close the gap on the top three in the overall points standings while also extending his own lead in the Big River Steel Bonus Program that will pay $100,000 to the winner. He’s also just 10 points behind Brandon Sheppard in the Arizona Crown Jewel Cup.
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