As Ricky Thornton Jr.’s dirt racing career has rapidly progressed, he’s learned all the more just how much he excels on lane-sensitive, half-mile racetracks.

That was more evident than ever in Saturday’s Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series Conococheague 50 at Hagerstown Speedway. The 34-year-old smoothly marched from the sixth-starting spot to overtake race-long pacesetter Garrett Alberson with 19 laps left — overcoming the hurdles of dirty air — and notch his seventh overall win of the season. | RaceWire

Five of his wins so far this year are now on half-miles: Jan. 30 and 31 at All-Tech Raceway in Lake City, Fla., Feb. 10-11 at Volusia Speedway Park in Barberville, Fla., and Hagerstown.

Thornton would have a sixth half-mile win if Devin Moran didn’t nose him out Friday at Georgetown (Del.) Speedway by 0.077 of a second. And there could easily be a seventh victory of such kind if he didn’t lose the lead to Moran on Feb. 1 at All-Tech with seven laps left and wreck out of second with two laps to go.

The Chandler, Ariz., superstar shines brightly on big tracks that have a tricky balance between the high-speed yet technical racing surfaces.

“Typically I run well at big racetracks. I don’t know if it’s the aero aspect of it, or I don’t know what it is,” Thornton said. “You have to put yourself in the right position where I feel like it’s critical anymore in Late Models.”

The reigning Lucas Oil champion has grown so comfortable on half-miles and big tracks in general he’s added long-distance USAC Silver Crown races to his rotation of extracurricular action outside his full-time job driving the Koehler Motorsports No. 20rt machine. On April 13 he finished 12th in his Silver Crown debut at Terre Haute (Ind.) Action Track, but ran eighth until a flat tire slowed him with two laps left of the 100-lap affair.

Thornton even attributed his savviness Saturday at Hagerstown — he powered from sixth to second in 14 laps — to some race-craft techniques he refined two weeks ago in the Silver Crown car at Terre Haute.

“Realistically, with how fast we’re going and how this place is shaped, it’s kind of like a Terre Haute,” Thornton said. “It definitely helped because you’re going so fast down the straightaway and you really have to slow down going into the corner.”

On a night his fellow title contenders Jonathan Davenport (finished sixth), Devin Moran (11th) and Brandon Overton (23rd, loss of power) struggled at the Maryland half-mile, Thornton didn’t show any sign of weakness. He was also slightly determined to avenge his last-lap loss four years ago in Lucas Oil competition at Hagerstown when Tim McCreadie stole the win from him in the final corner.

“Let McCreadie get by me going down the back straightaway going into turn three,” Thornton recalled. “Nice to come back and get this one done.”

Thornton has had more rewarding and thrilling victories in his career, and this year even more, but Saturday’s $25,000 triumph — the richest so far of his young campaign — makes him ultra proud of his Koehler Motorsports team. He didn’t feel like he had the best car, nor thought his baseline setup was good enough to win.

“I’ll be honest, I knew we had a good car, but Garrett was going to be the one to beat,” Thornton said. “He was really good in his heat race. I felt decent in my heat race and he put a straightaway on me.”

From the heat race to the 50-lap feature, Thornton chose to reconfigure three of the four shocks on his race car because Hagerstown “is so different, it’s so slick and so big, the standard package that we run wasn’t perfect for us.”

“Changed it a little bit and got a little bit better, Thornton said. “Probably the slipperiest place we’ve been in a while. I like coming here. I’m glad the rain held off.”

Thornton pointed out that most half-mile drivers slow down to roughly 1,500 rpms when entering a corner. At Hagerstown, that doubles.

“You need to slow down about 3,000 rpm (at Hagerstown, so it’s just characteristics,” Thornton said. 

“It gets so slick and I feel like we’re going so fast, going down into the corner we’re going over 100 mph, where your typical place, you can slide across the racetrack (to keep momentum),” he added. “Here, if you screw up, you about wreck because you are going so fast. You try to get your race craft better and better, and learn what you can. I feel like this place favors a guy who really knows what you need to do at the high-speed places. It fell our way.”

It’s also nice for Thornton to know he didn’t have to overdrive his race car to make speed in dirty air, which often limits passing opportunities at big tracks like Hagerstown.

“We just have a really good balance that fits me,” Thornton said. “We don’t abuse the tires or anything like that. You can run hard, but you don’t have to run on the ragged edge every lap. Whenever you do need to make a move, you have a little left to make a move. (Saturday) was one of those.

“I think out in clean air, I wasn’t going to beat Garrett. Once we got to traffic, it slowed him down. Me being able to run in dirty air behind him the whole time, I knew what I needed to do in order to pass cars.”

Maryland makes another state that Thornton had yet to win in. While he doesn’t keep track of how many states he’s won in — “I probably should,” he said — “we’re probably in the 20-25 state range.”

“There’s a lot of places still I haven’t ran,” said Thornton, whose mind ventured to a discipline that takes precedence in the state of New York.

“I want to win somewhere in the big-block (modified), that way I can say I won and raced a big-block,” Thornton said. “It’s honestly the last dirt car I haven’t drove. It wouldn’t be a bad deal.”