MINERAL WELLS, W. Va. — Ricky Thornton Jr. and Hudson O’Neal each won a 25-lap Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series preliminary feature Saturday night at West Virginia Motor Speedway, opening the 46th Annual ARP Dirt Track World Championship presented by Summit Racing Equipment weekend.
Thornton passed early leader Tyler Carpenter for the lead on lap 10 of the first $5,000-to-win feature. Carpenter led the opening nine laps. Thornton went on to win his third straight LOLMDS feature after sweeping both races at Eldora Speedway last weekend.
Thornton earned his 65th series victory by 1.358 seconds over Dillon McCowan, who started 10th and climbed to second. Championship contender Devin Moran completed the Big River Steel Podium in third. Chris Ferguson finished fourth, and Max Blair rounded out the top five.
“Early on, we just let Tyler and Devin go, and we were looking for the right opportunity. Those guys took off on the top, and I thought a yellow might give me the perfect opportunity. I knew Tyler wasn’t going to stay down there for very long. I thought if I could make a couple of good laps down there, we were going to be in good shape. When I got to third, I was watching Tyler and Devin. Their cars were a little better through the center than mine. I hit the yuke tire and knocked the nose down, and I thought, ‘I’ve really got to go now.’ I got a really good run off turn two and thought I could slide them going into turn three. Our car was good enough to do that.”
McCowan, in his rookie season with the series and making his first career start at WVMS, advanced from 10th to finish second.
“We’ve had a tough couple of weeks. Hats off to my guys. The track around the bottom was soupy, and then we ran around the top like a bullring. The car was good. Congrats to Ricky and Devin; they did a good job. Hopefully, we can tune on it some more tomorrow.”
Moran, seeking a second straight LOLMDS championship, trails Brandon Sheppard by 45 points heading into Sunday’s season finale.
“The track was a bit different from when we were here for the Hillbilly. It didn’t have as much grip on the bottom then as it did tonight. We weren’t expecting that. We know we have a decent car, so we know what to work on for tomorrow.”
In the second feature, O’Neal took the lead from early pacesetter Jonathan Davenport on lap 16 and pulled away for his 41st career LOLMDS victory. Davenport finished second, and Brandon Sheppard completed the Big River Steel Podium in third. Josh Rice and Dan Ebert rounded out the top five.
With the win, O’Neal broke a tie with four-time series champion Earl Pearson Jr. for seventh on the series’ all-time wins list.
“We’ve been pretty good; we just haven’t been able to show all the speed we had. I feel like over the last few months, we’ve gotten better and started working in the right direction. All my guys have worked their tails off to give us the best shot. It really crushed all of us after we fell out of the championship race last weekend. My dad told me that night, ‘Hey, there’s no pressure. Just go chase a hundred grand and try to win it.’ We want to race for a championship, but it’s cool to come here and have speed,” said the Martinsville, Indiana, native.
“I felt OK. Jonathan was making it tough on me. He was up, down, in the middle, left and right, just trying to find exactly where he needed to be. Then when we got to traffic, I think he got concerned about losing the lead on the bottom. I had a free lane to get up there and just let it sing. I felt good on the bottom, through the middle and against the cushion. I feel like we had a really good balance.”
Like O’Neal, Davenport will be looking for his first win in the DTWC, a crown jewel event that has eluded both drivers.
“We needed a good finish. We’ve had a pretty rough month. I wasn’t going to do anything stupid when we’re in a good starting spot for tomorrow. I pulled back down in traffic, and then Hudson got by us. My guys did an excellent job. We might have tightened it up a little too much for the tires we were on, just to see if we could overtighten this thing. We’ve been loose since July.”
Sheppard heads into Sunday’s DTWC with a chance to win his first Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series championship and a record sixth DTWC title, which would break his tie with Freddy Smith.
“We want to win, just like everybody else here. But at the end of the day, points are obviously on our mind, too. We’re just going to do the best we can. It’s going to play out like it’s going to play out. We’ll do our best, get a good balance under this thing and try to put it up front tomorrow. Getting our sixth Dirt Track World Championship would be really cool. These guys are super tough, obviously. I feel like I needed to roll the bottom a little bit better, so if we can do that, we’ll be better.”
