Is there a driver, no matter the motorsport, who gets more out of a race car than Ricky Thornton Jr.?

Overlooking his mangled No. 20RT machine Saturday night amid the haze and vibrancy of The Dome at America’s Center — the postrace scene after Brandon Sheppard staved off the Chandler, Ariz., superstar’s enthralling last-lap charge — Thornton was asked to answer that very question. 

“I was definitely trying all I had to get to him,” said Thornton, who’ll let the visual representation of those efforts — the rear bodywork that’d been utterly destroyed, the crumpled front end that sagged to the ground, the flat right-rear tire that required his car towed back to the pits — to speak for itself.

Thornton didn’t have to win the last race of the 2023 season for the proper sendoff, or closure, of his career-advancing 34-victory season. No, the late-race blitz from an afterthought to dang near winning Dirt Late Model racing’s indoor spectacle sufficed. Because in the end, the near misses define Thornton’s sensational season just as much as the crowning achievements.

How Thornton got to chasing Sheppard in the closing laps thrilled the event's record-setting crowd. Positioned in fourth with 11 laps to go around the congested fifth-mile oval, there seemed no way forward. Then, Devin Moran and Tanner English nearly tangled in traffic, which opened the door for Thornton.

As tactful and quick-witted as they come, Thornton darted low to avoid potential disaster. Suddenly, Thornton positioned himself to be one of the main players in another classic Gateway Dirt Nationals finish.

“I was pretty good. It was just so hard to pass early,” said Thornton, Friday's $5,000 preliminary winner. “It was so top dominant. Then the track started to slow down a little bit and I could move around. I looked up and there was 11 to go. I think I was fifth at that point? And knew I needed to get going.”

Over those final 10 laps, Thornton erased Sheppard’s 2.5-second deficit. While Sheppard negotiated lapped traffic, Thornton picked his pace, particularly by finding an extra bump of speed exiting turns two and four. Sheppard treaded the top more cautiously, not digging his right-rear quarterpanel overtop the cushion like his closest pursuer.

“I started driving a lot harder around the top and knew it was good for me,” said Thornton, whose words could be applied for most races he sets out to win. “I knew we were going to knock the deck out doing it — actually, blown the whole deck out. It’s cleaned out. Hate that for the guys (who have to work on it). It is going to get a new body anyway. Close. Close.”

Thornton did admit “there were a couple times I got in the wall and afraid I was going to kill the right-front.” But, of course, there was no point in letting up. In the final laps, Thornton didn’t see the congestive nature and gaggle of lapped cars as his enemy — “I don’t know if I would’ve caught him with open track,” he said — but as one of the variables working in his favor.

The car of Ryan Montgomery "actually had a flat left-rear for a few laps, and I thought if I could lucky, he’d get stuck and I could use him as a pick,” Thornton said. “But that didn’t work out. Brandon was good from the get-go. Stinks to run second and be that close.”

Montgomery did his best to stay out of the leaders’ way. On the final lap that saw Thornton hurl a last-ditch slider toward Sheppard, a move he “had to at least try,” the slower Montgomery pinned his car to the very bottom as Thornton knifed through the middle of the track.

Even if Montgomery didn’t take up the bottom lane, Thornton still wasn’t sure if he’d have the space to size up the race-winning move.

“I at least tried it and hoped (Sheppard) screwed up on entry to the point where I can’t see him anymore,” Thornton said. “But I could see him enough where if I did slid him, I’d probably clobber him and wreck both of us. I didn’t want to do that. Obviously he’s always run me super clean, so I didn’t want to run him over and make myself look dumb. I tried as hard as I could. We came up just a little short.”

This December’s Gateway Dirt Nationals offered Thornton a grander vibe compared to years before. In the modified world, his success abounds. Before this year, Thornton as a Late Model racer possessed the potential to be seen as an up-and-coming talent.

But could anyone expect Thornton to be standing in St. Louis as the Driver of the Year? Only Anthony Burroughs and crew, the SSI Motorsports team that’ll enter another season in 2024 with no signs of slowing down. Fans have embraced Thornton as he’s climbed Dirt Late Model racing’s ladder.

On Saturday, as he exited the temporary fifth-mile oval on foot via the turn-three track exit, the many fans that consisted of the largest Gateway Dirt Nationals crowd in its seven-year history affirmed Thornton with shouts of approval and praise.

Walking along the runaway between the stadium’s seats and the racetrack itself, Thornton heard every uplifting and encouraging word cast down from the lively grandstands. Those final moments of Thornton’s 2023 Dirt Late Model season couldn’t have been more fitting.

“It’s been extremely different (Gateway Dirt Nationals) for us,” Thornton said right after acknowledging the pocket of fans adulating his final performance of 2023. “Normally we come here and … I wouldn’t say we’re lowkey, but we weren’t one of the top guys,” Thornton said. “This year we came and we’re one of the top guys right out of the box.

“A lot of fans stopped by. Competitors, too. Stuff like that. People I haven’t seen in a long time came. I feel like you walk out of that deal in driver intros, and that’s the loudest cheer I’ve heard in a long time for me. Overall, it’s pretty cool.”

Eighteen days stand between the end of the 2023 Dirt Late Model season and the start of the new racing season with Jan. 6-14’s Wild West Shootout at Vado (N.M.) Speedway Park. For Thornton, his Late Model season won’t resume until Jan. 17’s DIRTcar Sunshine Nationals with the World of Outlaws Case Late Model Series at Volusia Speedway Park in Barberville, Fla.

In the meantime, he’s staying quite busy diversifying himself. He’ll compete in four micro sprint divisions at Tulsa Shootout at the end of the month before rolling into the Chili Bowl Nationals — midget car racing’s Super Bowl — the beginning of January driving for Reinbold/Underwood Motorsports, the team that won the coveted Golden Driller trophy with Tanner Thorson in 2022.

There’s also an expectation that Thornton will enter his first winged 410 sprint car race sometime during the 2024 season, as long as those potential plans don’t conflict with his Late Model schedule.

All of the above complement the main priority, which is Thornton’s ever-evolving success and popularity with his Morgantown, Ind.-based Late Model team owned by Todd and Vicki Burns.

"My dream’s always been to run a Late Model, so I figure there’s no reason to take away from it,” said Thornton, who’s about maxed-out schedule wise running nearly 100 races in the Late Model and select events in the micro sprint and modified.

As Thornton readied to hop in his modified for the final time of the 2023 season Saturday, the tow truck lugging his malformed and battle-scared No. 20RT machine crept by and caught his attention one final time. It was reinforcement that going for broke — the mentality behind many of his memorable moments this year — was absolutely worth it.

“A lot of bodywork, but I’ll say in the end that it was worth it,” Thornton said. “I wouldn’t have changed my race any, not at all. We went after it. We left it all out there.”