LOCUST GROVE, Ark. — For the second year in a row Ricky Thornton Jr. won the Friday Night preliminary event for the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series at Batesville Motor Speedway.
The race kicked off the weekend for the $50,000 to win Nutrien Ag Solutions Topless 100 Presented by Big River Steel on Saturday Night.
Dale McDowell, the defending Topless 100 champion finished second followed by Tim McCreadie, Mike Marlar and Hudson O’Neal.
Thornton held the lead for all 30 laps, collecting $5,000 for his second win for the Koehler Motorsports team and crew chief, Chris Madden, a former Topless 100 winner in 2019.
It was Thornton’s 13th series win of the season and the 41st of his career, breaking a tie with Earl Pearson Jr. for fifth place on the all-time series win list.
McDowell ran second the entire distance as he attempts to become the first driver in the 32-year-history of the Topless 100 to win in back-to-back years.
Thornton, who will start from the pole on Saturday night is seeking his first win in the crown jewel event.
“For some reason, I am really good here early in the week. I felt like we were better tonight than what we typically are. I don’t know, I think we just need to work on our stuff to get a little better for these long features. The setup on the car is weird, it’s way different than I have ever driven. Thanks to the guys for getting the car ready this week while I was running a pavement midget car. It’s nice to hop back in it and have some speed. Hopefully tomorrow it will start off just as muddy and I hope the racing can be just as good.”
McDowell, a two-time winner of the event came home in second, trailing Thornton by 0.705 seconds at the finish.
“We hope we can take advantage of a good starting spot tomorrow night. I am sure they will do some different things to the track and that’ll throw us some curves before the feature. The biggest thing is just getting yourself in a position and get your car fast enough. I think Ricky was comfortable out front over the last 15 laps of the race. It was a bad day for our camp with Scott [Bloomquist] being gone. We are right there on the property, so hopefully we can get a win tomorrow night for that bunch up there our hearts go out to the entire Bloomquist family.”
McCreadie, who was scheduled to start from the pole but was penalized a row on the initial start of the race rounded out the podium.
“It’s always a judgment call. I might have gone a little early, but I was in the rubber. It’s part of the thing. My right-rear was in the rubber the cars outside are in the rubber so it’s always going to look way worse than that and then Dale couldn’t take off on the next restart because he’s scared to death to do it. It’s just kind of the way it works next time I just won’t start as early.”
The finish:
Ricky Thornton Jr., Dale McDowell, Tim McCreadie, Mike Marlar, Hudson O’Neal, Scott Crigler, Devin Moran, Ethan Dotson, Garrett Alberson, Tyler Stevens, Carson Ferguson, Jared Landers, Stormy Scott, Jimmy Owens, Jonathan Davenport, B.J. Robinson, Max Blair, Billy Moyer Sr., David Breazeale, Daulton Wilson, Timothy Culp, Boom Briggs, Drake Troutman, Ross Robinson.