LOCUST GROVE, Ark. — Ricky Thornton Jr. wasn’t particularly thrilled, of course, that a flat right-rear took him out of the lead on the 65th lap of Saturday’s Nutrien Ag Solutions Topless 100 at Batesville Motor Speedway.

But the Chandler, Ariz., driver who comfortably leads the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series standings by 245 points over Devin Moran couldn’t be overly upset that an unfortunate flat tire costed him his would-be 13th series feature win of 2024. He knew he had “the best car” at the Arkansas clay oval all weekend long.

That takeaway adds to his assurance he and new Koehler Motorsports No. 20rt team with Chris Madden as crew chief are right where they need to be into the back half of August.

“I have to thank my guys. They busted their butts this weekend. I felt like we had the best car here,” said the 33-year-old Thornton, ended up fifth. “It just shows how hard they’re working. We’re not going to stop working either. Next week we’re going to Lernerville and Port Royal where we’ve had speed. We’ll be looking for that next payday.”

🚨 Flat tire for race leader @RThornton20rt! @lucasdirt #lucasdirt pic.twitter.com/AbAHcdQeWx

— FloRacing (@FloRacing) August 18, 2024

The pole-starting Thornton paced the opening 41 laps before eventual winner Tim McCreadie went past on a restart. McCreadie, who raced Thornton hard for the lead, relinquished the top spot on 59. McCreadie wondered if his continued pressure on Thornton forced the flat tire, but Thornton said he “didn’t feel like I was overdriving where we hurt the right-rear.

“I was kind of running hard, but riding at the same time, if that makes sense,” he continued. “I don’t know. About two laps before, it threw me off a little bit off turn two. Then it did it again the next lap. Then it ended in a flat. That third lap, I knew right away. I got into turn one and got to the curb, and it blew up. You could feel it at that point. It sucks, but it’s part of racing. The good part is we at least salvaged a good finish.”

After last weekend’s midpack run at Florence Speedway’s North-South 100 where he started ninth and finished eighth, Thornton said Madden “went over the car with a fine-tooth comb” and “found a couple things wrong” that “kind of got overlooked.”

“Throwing this deal together has been kind of tough,” Thornton said. “He was able to work a lot this week while I was gone. It really helped us as a team. I felt like we unloaded the best I’ve ever unloaded here. Overall, I feel like we had a really good car. As far as our team gelling, I think it’s going really good.

“Hopefully we can keep that going. We’ve had a lot of speed. As I said, they’re working hard. I feel like we had a good car even after we changed tires. It’s hard to come through the field here. Luckily we had a bunch of yellows. I think after the race they said we had another flat. It’s unfortunate, but at least we salvaged a really nice night out of it.”

Thornton’s now onto a pair of racetracks he won at the last time he’s visited: Wednesday at Lernerville Speedway in Sarver, Pa., on Castrol FloRacing Night in America and Friday-Saturday at Port Royal (Pa.) Speedway. He won June 22’s Firecracker 100 at Lernerville and April 28 at Port Royal.

“I love going to Lernerville. It’s elbows up, get after it,” Thornton said. “Then once it’s slick you really have to be patient and hit your line. I’m excited to go there for the Flo race. Port Royal, it’ll probably be different both nights, but I feel like we have a car that’s good enough to run all over the racetrack. That’s the big thing there. It might be on the fence or it might be through the middle.

“We were really good this year running all over. I feel like our car is just as good as I was to start the year. We keep fine-tuning on it, get it a little better, and if things go our way, I think we’ll be really competitive.”

Billy Moyer Eases Back

Hall of Fame driver Billy Moyer had low expectations but high hopes at this past weekend’s Topless 100 driving for Double L Motorsports and team owners Lance and Darla Landers. Part of the 67-year-old’s low expectations is because the deal that teamed him up with three-time Lucas Oil champ Jonathan Davenport for the weekend came together “in the 12th hour.”

It was also his first weekend back in a race car since July 6’s vicious flip at Deer Creek Speedway’s Gopher 50 in Spring Valley, Minn., while driving for Cooney Motorsports. At Batesville, Moyer pulled the plug after lap 35 of the feature once he realized his still-aching body couldn’t weather a “very demanding” racetrack to the finish.

“My rib soreness has kind of come back from that wreck. I guess I’m not 100 percent back yet,” the 22nd-finishing Moyer said. “And not to make up all these excuses, but I have asthma, and this air is as bad as it gets. I wasn’t going to faint, but I just put together this deal on the 12th hour.

“The last thing I wanted to do was wreck that thing for Lance,” he added.

Moyer’s deal with Landers came together last Tuesday when the Batesville, Ark., native popped into Landers’ new Bobcat store in town to ask him a few questions. Moyer was content with “showing up with my Polaris and watching as a fan in turn four.” But the offer from Landers, of course, was too good to pass up.

Moyer won the second B-main and was “excited and felt excellent” ahead of the feature, where he followed Davenport through the field to as high as 11th before his night ended.

“What a race car. I love that race car,” Moyer said. “J.D. was better than me and he got to second there. I like to run the middle here in those black crumbs. The car wouldn’t do that. It was way free on exit unless I was living on that berm. I just didn’t think I was going to go forward much more than I was.”

Moyer was “two or three adjustments off” from feeling competitive. Because he prepped his tires, that divided his attention from his speciality of dialing in the car just right.

“We were scrambling trying to get tires ready and my mind ain’t on the chassis like it should be because I don’t really have a tire guy,” Moyer said. “If I had a tire guy, I could focus on the car and I wouldn’t have missed the setup as much.”

Moyer’s hoping “I can go further with Lance in this deal” — “I think I’ve proved I can still drive,” he added — but if he’s going to do anymore racing here forward, “I’ve got to get in the gym and get my butt in shape with these young kids.”

“That’s all it takes really,” Moyer said. “If I get on the treadmill, I think I’ll be fine. Sixty-seven is hard. Even at 50, nothing bothered me. But I can tell now. The rib thing, right there by your lungs, it does something to your lungs.”

Moyer’s unclear when he could race next. He doesn't have any scheduled races with Cooney, but he'd love to return with Landers at the World 100 in a would-be superstar pairing with Davenport at Eldora Speedway. It’s a possibility, but Moyer, again, remains unsure.“I’d like to run some more stuff,” Moyer said, “but it’s totally up in the air.”

Crunch Time For Hudson O'Neal

It’s crunch time for Hudson O’Neal and SSI Motorsports if they want to be part of this fall’s Lucas Oil Series top-four playoff chase. After Saturday’s sixth-place finish, O’Neal has fallen 60 points behind Topless 100 winner Tim McCreadie for the fourth and final playoff spot.

The 23-year-old was proverbially kicking himself after Saturday’s feature for losing a few spots down the stretch for jumping the turn-four cushion on lap 81.

“Our race car was all right. I just didn’t do my job of making sure I played the right cars throughout the race,” O’Neal said. “Probably used my stuff up too early and made some mistakes at the end of the race that cost us. I don’t think we were going to win, but we were going to run second or third, right through there.”

“Just didn’t work out. It is what it is. It’s kind of hard to swallow when you make personal mistakes like that and make personal mistakes like that doing stuff you shouldn’t. We’ll move on and see what we can learn.”

While O’Neal has “a really good” race car come feature time, he’d like to see faster qualifying times. Fortunately for him he returns to Port Royal (Pa.) Speedway next weekend, the half-mile he swept $55,000 at last year that ultimately propelled him toward a victory in the World 100 and the Lucas Oil Series championship.

Wednesday’s Castrol FloRacing Night in America stop at Lernerville Speedway in Sarver, Pa., is a race he looks forward to as well.

“We’re really excited about that. We’ve always ran good at Lernerville and Port Royal. I think we’ll have a good shot at it. … I think we’re in a similar situation. I feel like we’re building and building and building, and we’re finally getting comfortable everywhere we go. Our race car is obviously really good. We’ll see what we can learn next weekend.”

Dale McDowell’s Missed Setup

Dale McDowell knew early on during Saturday’s feature he likely wouldn’t have the setup to win his second straight Topless 100. 

“It was a completely different racetrack than it was last year, so some of our notes from last year did not work,” the ninth-finishing McDowell said. “We made some changes. Hot laps we were fastest overall, so we left it. But it wasn’t as good once the racetrack went through its normal changes. The racetrack definitely had some character.

“We did the best we could. We were just too tight, really. Once it slicked off, we were too tight. We’ll put that in our notes and come back and try again.”

The second-starting McDowell rode in fifth before a flat right-rear tire curbed his decent run. McDowell added that fresher rubber didn’t help him because it only made his Shane McDowell Racing Team Zero Race Car tighter.

“That actually hurt me because I got tighter. Once I got back to the back, it was hard for me to work my way through there,” McDowell said. “I think we could’ve run top-five without the flat; somewhere between third or fifth, or something. We were teetering around right there. We needed to be more maneuverable. 

“Shane does an excellent job of keeping notes and keeping on top of our changes. We just made the wrong change. We’ll take note of that and see how it’s different next time. But the racetrack was really racy. Timmy was awesome around the top. You could run the bottom for a little while. … It was exciting from my viewpoint. They were racing and sliding and banging.”

All things considered, McDowell “enjoyed” this year’s installment of the Topless. Now, he’ll prepare for Sept. 5-7’s World 100 at Ohio’s Eldora Speedway.

“It didn’t go my way this trip, but we had fun, took notes,” McDowell said. “We’ll go to Eldora and shoot at it there.”

Odds And Ends

Rocket Chassis co-founder Mark Richards was thrilled for eighth-finishing Boom Briggs of Bear Lake, Pa., the veteran driver who turned in one of his best finishes of the year from the 19th-starting spot driving one of Rocket Chassis three newest XR1s in the field: “For Boom to be able to run in the top 10 in a race like this, it just shows that we’re headed in the right direction.” Winner Tim McCreadie and 26th-finishing Clay Harris, “who had some bad luck this weekend,” Richards said, were the other two drivers sporting Richards’s new line of XR1s that debuted July 22 at Davenport (Iowa) Speedway. “Timmy McCreadie is expected to win,” Briggs said. “Boom Briggs isn’t supposed to start 19th and finish eighth. Listen, if Davenport would’ve picked the bottom (on the last restart on lap 87), I would’ve ran fourth.” … Infrequent driver Jared Landers of Batesville, Ark., debuted his new Category 5 Race Car over the weekend, a collaborative effort between Landers and Steve Lampley’s team maintained by Randy Korte. Landers is scheduled to race the Category 5 No. 777 in the upcoming World 100 while Shannon Babb will take the seat for Oct. 18-19’s Dirt Track World Championship weekend, also at Eldora Speedway. … Speaking of Category 5 Race Cars, its flagship driver, Stormy Scott, saw a flat right derail his Topless weekend. Scott, who was eventually clobbered by Drake Troutman as he slowed to a stop on the top of turn one on lap 35, said he ran over something the lap before the tire went completely flat and “tried to get out of the way” by hanging his No. 2s machine as far wide as possible because the pit entrance was on the other side of the track.