Hudson O’Neal and Ricky Thornton Jr. didn’t put their new rides in Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series victory lane Thursday at 34 Raceway in West Burlington, Iowa, but consider their respective evenings a success.

For O’Neal, his runner-up to Devin Moran aboard the new-look No. 71 SSI Motorsports machine put a smile on his 23-year-old face when breaking down the 50-lap feature to pit reporter Ben Shelton.

“There’s no words to describe it. Like I told those guys, I feel like I won almost,” O’Neal said. “Man, what a week it’s been. What a last few months it’s been in general. My racing career has been a little up and down, up and down. Yeah, just feels good to get back to rolling really good.”

Thornton, meanwhile, earned hard charger honors with his 13th-to-fourth performance debuting with Koehler Motorsports. Getting back to the racetrack set both Thornton and O’Neal in the right frame of mind after a long, whirlwind news week. In a prerace interview, Thornton told Shelton “I’m ready to go” when asked how he felt mentally.

WATCH: Ricky Thornton Jr. talks about his transition from SSI to Koehler Motorsports.

O’Neal, on the other hand, admitted he “nerved up” on his drive over to 34 Raceway.

“We didn’t get to practice, didn’t get to do anything,” O’Neal continued in his postrace interview. “Just turned out to be a great night.”

It looked like O’Neal had something for Moran partway through Thursday’s nonstop feature, but the Martinsville, Ind., driver “just missed a little bit of balance right there in the end.” All in all, O’Neal “felt like I had a really good race car there” in his first night working with accomplished crew chief Anthony Burroughs and team.

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“All in all, man, these guys … everybody at SSI, they gave me a great race car to come out here and compete,” O’Neal said. “We’re just thrilled to be standing back up here again.

“I felt like maybe I used my tire a little too much there at the beginning,” O’Neal added. “Then my diamond line I was running down there in three and four, my right-rear gave up and I couldn’t do that anymore. I had to move to the bottom and I wasn’t quite as good. Yeah, no, what a great stepping stone this is to start working in the right direction.”

WATCH: Feature highlights from Thursday's Lucas Oil Series at 34 Raceway.

Despite being released from a race team for the first time in his driving career, Thornton never appeared to let that bother him Thursday. He proceeded to tell Shelton in a prerace interview that “we’ll be one of the best teams out here” even with a team that scrambled together the last few days just to have a race-ready car for him.

Thornton will get through July 20’s Silver Dollar Nationals at Huset’s Speedway in Brandon, S.D. — a seven-race stretch on the Lucas Oil Series — racing Jordan Koehler’s Longhorn Chassis with a No. 20RT decal slapped overtop the team’s No. 114 until new race cars are eventually ready for him. Even under those circumstances, Thornton wasn’t far off Thursday.

RELATED: Why Ricky Thornton Jr. Signed With Koehler Motorsports

“The problem is, it’s not like it’s a one or two race thing,” Thornton said. “We run seven nights the next 10 days. I think we have everything together for the most part. Just excited to go out and race. Monday night went to the (Castrol FloRacing Night in America) race there at Lincoln (Ill.) and started off pretty bad, but it ended pretty good in the end.

“I kind of look at it at the same time, even when I owned my own team, it’s you want to go out and perform the best you can. If you don’t win or don’t run well, you’re not making any money. When we roll out, it’ll be full focus. I know (crew chief) Kenny (Payton) really knows his stuff. Like I said, Bilstein and Longhorn have been a huge help in this whole Koehler team this week.”