Ricky Thornton Jr. and his team addressed his opening night struggles at All-Tech Raceway.

Thornton started his night with a 10th place qualifying run in Group B with a time of 18.621 nearly a second off the pace of Brandon Overton who posted a lap of 17.977. That put him in a fifth place starting position in Heat 4. Thornton looked to have some solid speed, but he struggled to work his way around Tyler Wyant. A lap into the heat and Thornton tried to make a move to the outside of Wyant going down the back stretch, but he lost grip and drifted up and into the outside wall making significant contact.

Fortunately, he was able to keep going, but he lost fifth position to Preston Luckman. It took him nearly the rest of the heat race to get by both Luckman and Wyant, but he was able to get them both coming off of turn 4 and down the front straightway on the outside. That allowed him to finish fourth and advance to the feature.

With his fourth place finish in the heat Thornton started 16th in the feature. And he rode around there for much of the beginning portion of the feature. For example, 10 laps into the race and he was sitting in 17th. Following a caution for Chris Madden with 26 laps left, Thornton suffered right front damage after the inside line stacked up on a restart and Jackson Hise and Dillon McCowan spun. Thornton piled into the rear of Cory Hedgecock.

However, the damage did not seem to seriously affect the car’s speed and he was able to advance to 11th on the ensuing restart. Following another caution for a Justin Weaver spin with 24 laps left, Thornton continued his advance on the next restart getting up to 8th. The race would be slowed again just before halfway for debris that came off Dan Ebert’s car. Thornton continued to go forward and made his way up to 6th after second place running Clay Harris wrecked with 11 laps left in the race.

 Unfortunately, Thornton misjudged the inside tractor tire on the final restart and made direct contact with it. That appeared to significantly harm the car and he faded over the final laps to finish in 14th.

Thornton and his team addressed the up and down night with a post to Facebook, “Just one of those nights. Qualified slow, hit the wall in the heat- still transferred, got rolling in the main and the bottom bottled up on a restart resulting in major nose damage, got all the way to 6th & got the infield tire.”

He concluded, “We are lacking some speed. Our whole team knows it. They’re all working hard. They’ll get it figured out. Tomorrow is a new day. See y’all then. Congrats to Rocket 1 on their win.”

NEXT: Brandon Sheppard Wins Thrilling Lucas Oil Opener At All-Tech Raceway