Ricky Thornton Jr. was one of the favorites going into the Show Me 100 at Lucas Oil Speedway with a 4th place finish on Thursday night and a 2nd place finish on Friday night, which landed him a starting position on the outside of the pole. However, Thornton shared that the track not getting slick ended his chances of winning the race.
While Thornton Jr. started second behind Hudson O’Neal, he quickly fell to third at the beginning of the race with both O’Neal and Davenport setting a torrid pace at the front of the field. He had a hectic opening of the race biking the car as he drove through turns 1 &2 on the first lap. He then was hit by Justin Wells as the two were racing side-by-side going through turns 1 & 2 on the eighth lap of the race.
Following a restart with 91 laps to go Thornton was one of the few cars that went high coming out of Turn 4 and he paid the price as Justin Wells zipped based him on the inside and he fell into a 5-car race for fourth involving Devin Moran, Carson Ferguson, Bobby Pierce, and Brandon Sheppard. Thornton eventually held onto the fourth spot, but would cede it to Ferguson a few laps later. Bobby Pierce would then nab fifth from a few laps after that.
After another a restart with 66 laps to go, Thornton would fall back even further to eighth. He eventually fell as far back ninth. After a restart with 59 laps to go, he would make up a couple of positions into 7th. He would oscillate between 5th and 8th through much of the middle portion of the race and eventually finished the race out with a 7th place finish.
In a post to Facebook, Thornton’s team noted that the night “was disappointing” and that they “just didn’t have the car to win or compete tonight and finished 7th after folding the nose under around halfway.”
Speaking to DirtonDirt.com following the race, Thornton told Kevin Kovac, “We just weren’t very good.” However, he believed that if the track had gotten slicker he had a chance at winning, “I told the guys we were a fifth- to 10th-place car in the mud and we were good enough car to win when it gets slick, and it just never got slick.”
Thornton was not the only one who was hoping the track would get slick, eventual second place finisher Jonathan Davenport also was hoping the track would have made at least one more change, “Obviously, we didn’t set up for that. I thought it might get fast, but I didn’t think it would stay there that long. It needed to make one more change. I think if it would ever push the cushion off the top where we would have to start migrating back low, I think we would have been Ok.”
NEXT: Garrett Alberson And His Team Explain What Led To Heavy Hit At Lucas Oil Speedway