SARVER, Pa. — Ricky Thornton Jr. led wire-to-wire, winning the 57th Annual Summit Racing Equipment Hillbilly Hundred presented by Arizona Sport Shirts on Saturday night at Lernerville Speedway.
Thornton’s 13th Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series win of the season was worth $30,000 and marked his first victory in dirt late model racing’s oldest, ongoing race that began in 1967.
Thornton faced a tough challenge from Jonathan Davenport after a lap 90 caution when the top two in the series championship points made contact in a side-by-side battle. Thornton was able to pull away from Davenport in the final nine laps to win by 1.397 seconds.
Max Blair, who started 13th, rounded out the podium in third after passing Devin Moran right before the final caution of the race.
Moran finished fourth. Brandon Overton earned the Hoker Trucking Hard Charger of the Race as he finished fifth after starting 21st.
In Lucas Oil Victory Lane for the 55th time in his career, Thornton has now won three of the last four Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series presented by FloRacing events.
“I am glad that the first yellow came out. I really didn’t get a great start; I let JD get out in front of me,” Thornton said. “I felt like whoever got out front would be the one to beat, whether your car is better or not. We tried a bunch of different things today, and I felt we were a lot better. I still think we need to improve a lot once it finally cleans off, but overall, it was a really good night for us. You have to start the night off well with good qualifying, have a solid heat race, and a good start to the feature.”
Davenport was seeking his third career Hillbilly Hundred victory. He took home $15,000 for a second-place finish and gave his viewpoint on the lap 91 restart.
“I got a pretty good restart, and I was planning to slide him when I got into one, but just like a few other times when I’d get a run on him, Thornton was going to come all the way to the bottom,” Davenport explained. “So I was either going to crash us both or do something else, and I didn’t want to do that. I moved back to the top and got a really good run. I doubt he saw me, but if he heard me, you know, whatever, he says he didn’t. It is what it is; as he said, whoever gets out in front is going to be really hard to beat.”
Blair, who also finished third in the track’s signature event, the Firecracker 100, in June, worked his way methodically to a podium finish after starting on the inside of row number seven.
“I love this place when it gets slippery like that. I need to improve in the heat races so I can start a little higher than 13th. We were really strong at the end of the race, so congrats to Ricky — he’s on a roll. It’s getting down to crunch time in this championship, and it’s cool to see him racking up all these wins. Hopefully, he can keep it up and go back-to-back.”
The finish:
Ricky Thornton Jr., Jonathan Davenport, Max Blair, Devin Moran, Brandon Overton, Mike Marlar, Carson Ferguson, Tim McCreadie, Brandon Sheppard, Tyler Erb, Boom Briggs, Garrett Alberson, Dan Ebert, Donald McIntosh, Brock Pinkerous, Hudson O’Neal, Josh Joiner, Drake Troutman, Ken Schaltenbrand, Clay Harris, Logan Zarin, Daniel Hilsabeck, Cory Lawler, Colton Flinner, Alex Ferree, Kyle Bronson, Tyler Dietz, Chub Frank.
