A fan approached Ricky Thornton Jr. at Huset’s Speedway following Wednesday’s Tri-State Late Model Series victory with an honest question.

“You racing all three divisions this week?” the fan asked the Tri-State tour winner, wondering if along with his regular Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series duties he'd compete in the supporting Malvern Bank West Series Late Model action.

Thornton, though appreciative of the question, got a good laugh that someone would think of him being that zealous in his race-chasing pursuits. But the 33-year-old driver's latest stretch of racing makes the fan’s question a fair one.

Over five days, Thornton raced five race cars, competed in four divisions, racked up five podium finishes and is seemingly the talk of dirt-track racing social webs. And that's before the three-day Lucas Oil Series portion of the Silver Dollar Nationals at Huset’s.

While his Lucas Oil Series competitors enjoyed the night off Wednesday with the Tri-State Series at Huset’s, Thornton added another race to his ever-diversifying schedule, getting the one-off opportunity to wheel a Justin Zeitner-owned entry in the 35-lap, $6,000-to-win Ben Nothdurft Memorial. To the surprise of no one, Thornton captured his 19th overall checkered flag of the season: 17 in the Late Model and two in an IMCA stock car. He did in his usual, convincing fashion, too, as 5.174 seconds separated him and runner-up Bill Leighton Jr.

“Pretty awesome night. To be able to hop in a guy’s car and be competitive right out of the box, it shows how good this team is,” Thornton said. “It’s pretty cool.”

The win is indeed “pretty cool” because the 2018 Longhorn Chassis that Zeitner lent Thornton is the same car Thornton won two marquee Lucas Oil Series events with: The 2020 Pittsburgher at Pittsburgh’s Pennsylvania Motor Speedway and last year’s Jackson 100 at Brownstown (Ind.) Speedway.

Thornton’s one-off ride with Zeitner had been in place “for two or three months” beforehand, long prior to his release from SSI Motorsports last week and subsequent transition to Koehler Motorsports.

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This week’s been a racer’s dream for Thornton, who, following Friday's Lucas Oil rainouts Friday at Tri-City Speedway in Granite City, Ill., and Saturday at wLucas Oil Speedway in Wheatland, Mo, started his five-day stretch landing an impromptu USAC national midget ride Saturday at Nebraska’s Jefferson County Speedway with Keith Kunz’s powerhouse operation. (Kunz’s midget team groomed auto racing superstars Kyle Larson, Christopher Bell and Rico Abreu).

Thornton texted Kunz at 2:15 p.m. Saturday saying he’d love to race one of his midget cars if possible. An obliging Kunz got right back to Thornton, who then dashed 300-plus miles up the road to Fairbury, Neb. for his first outdoor midget car start on the whim. On Sunday at Beatrice (Neb.) Speedway, Thornton competed in IMCA's modified and stock car divisions for his friend Jordan Grabouski, posting second- and third-place finishes.

Then, on Monday and Tuesday at Eagle (Neb.) Raceway and Shelby County Speedway in Harlan, Iowa, Thornton returned to his Lucas Oil duties with his new Koehler Motorsports team, twice finishing second to his SSI Motorsports successor, Hudson O’Neal. Thrown July 8's Castrol FloRacing Night in America event at Lincoln (Ill.) Speedway where he raced Steve Sheppard’s No. 5s in an emergency situation and Thornton’s piloted six race cars over 10 days.

“Sprinkle in maybe a sprint car race or something and it’d be the ultimate dream week,” Thornton said. “Just fortunate enough whenever I do get to hop into other people’s stuff that it’s really good cars, really well prepared. I like doing it because you can learn different things from different cars. I think I learned a lot with this car that I can apply tomorrow. If it’s got wheels, I’ll race it.”

Thornton’s actually turned that last phrase “if it’s got wheels, I’ll race it” into T-shirts available for purchase at his merch trailer maintained by his wife, Shae. Wednesday actually put Thornton at 80 total races contested this year among Late Models, micro sprint cars, modifieds, stock cars and midget cars — and it's mid-July.

He's got at least 30 Late Model events remaining on his tentative schedule, which has Thornton thinking he can surpass his personal high of 147 races in a single season this year. For Thornton, racing as much as possible keeps him sharper rather than it burning him out.

“I honestly think that’s how it is,” Thornton said. “It’s no different for me, like, either racing here being at home playing Call of Duty or playing iRacing. Those are the three things I pretty much do. Obviously I spend time with my family, but I love racing. If I could race everyday, I would.”

Thornton has team owner Bobby Koehler’s blessing to race whatever he wants, wherever he wants, as long “as long as it doesn’t affect the events schedule we have,” Koehler told DirtonDirt.com in a phone interview earlier this week. 

“Let’s go race. He can go race every night if he wanted to race every night,” Koehler said. “I don’t have nothing against it. As you see (NASCAR champion) Kyle Larson, he races everything there is and that’s why he’s the best in the sport because he understands different feelings in order to make him fast forward to be what he is. My 16-year-old (Jordan), he runs a Crate car, a micro, a Super, and we’re getting ready to put him in a modified.”

Thornton is surprised more touring Dirt Late Model drivers don’t compete more.

“You can pick up so much from racing other disciplines,” Thornton said. “I mean, like, running the midget the other night, obviously I didn’t run as well as I hoped (17th-place finish). But I learned so much there I actually think it’s going to apply here. Like, there was a big curb that night. We know there’s going to be a big curb around here come Saturday. Some of that stuff you can transfer over. And kind of the same for tonight. I’m going to learn a lot for the rest of the weekend.

“It wouldn’t surprise me over the next year or two Terbo (Tyler Erb) or (Devin) Moran, or other guys, start racing other stuff. Maybe not all the time, but once or twice a month. It really helps your focus for when you do get back in a Late Model.”

Next up on Thornton’s bucket list is racing a 410 winged sprint car for the first time. 

“I want to race a sprint car race before the year is over with, if we find something and do it,” Thornton said. “I think we will. It just has to be the right scenario. I don’t want to go out and hurt myself, or do something dumb that’d take me out of Lucas stuff. We’re in such a good position right now for the Lucas points, I don’t want to jeopardize that. I think it’d be cool to do.

“I think, regardless, I’ll go test somewhere and see how I like it. I really don’t have a ton planned as of right now. I have my micro sitting there. So if we have an off weekend, I might run that or go run with Evan Koehler at Millbridge (Speedway in Salisbury, N.C.) or something. We’ll have to wait and see.”

Thornton won’t have to wait long to add another new opportunity. Next week for July 24’s Castrol Series event at Fairbury (Ill.) Speedway and July 26-27’s Prairie Dirt Classic at Fairbury, he’ll be aboard Kevin Rumley’s Late Model that Larson has stepped away from for the time being.

“That’ll be awesome to team up with Kevin Rumley. When everything kind of happened, (O'Neal) was actually supposed to drive it," Thornton said. "With him going to SSI, I figured it’d be the perfect scenario to get in that and see if we can learn something and apply it to our Koehler car also. Bobby’s been super awesome in all of it. I told him up front we’re planning this, and he’s super cool with it.”