LINCOLN, Ill. (May 8) — Following Thursday’s runner-up finish to Devin Moran in FloRacing Night in America action at Lincoln Speedway, Ricky Thornton Jr. mused over a trend he hopes won’t define his season.

“You look at the last two years, and I feel like Devin’s ran second a ton where he’s been just as good as me or Bobby (Pierce) has,” Thornton said. “I feel like it’s one of those things, you never know, it can switch. You can have a really good year getting 30 wins or you can have 30 seconds and really lose a lot of money.”

When briefed on that hunch from the reigning Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series champion, the Dresden, Ohio, racer didn’t dismiss Thornton’s observations — nor did he put on a facade of humility.

Instead, he smiled and leaned into Thornton’s assessment ever so slightly.

“I like the sound of that,” Moran said. “But it is Ricky Thornton. He’s pretty dang good. Hopefully we can get more wins, and that’s what I feel like we’re doing so far.”

Last year, Moran reeled off 14 victories but finished second a staggering 20 times. This year, Moran boasts seven victories and only two runner-up finishes in 27 starts. Thornton, meanwhile, is still outpacing Moran with eight total victories in 30 feature starts, but his eight runner-ups (he had 13 runner-ups all of 2024) makes him wonder if he’s in for a bridesmaid-like season similar to Moran’s 2024.

That aside, the Double Down Motorsports driver has set the goal of 20 victories for himself this year. Should he sustain his winning pace the rest of the season, logging 93 features like he did last year, he’d be on pace for 24 wins.

“We have a lot of work to do, but we’re gonna keep on digging,” Moran said. “Yeah, I just feel like, once again, our car is good, Ricky is good, Bobby is good. It’s going to be a dogfight all year long.”

Moran and his Double Down team rolled into the quarter-mile bullring at Logan County Fairgrounds in central Illinois not expecting much from the third round of Illinois Speedweek. Lincoln is among Moran’s worst racetracks — “We’re never in contention to run great,” Moran added — and, at best, he’s “a 10th-place car here.”

“I felt like this is my worst track out of all of them (this week),” Moran said. “For some reason, everything just clicked. I was really good in qualifying, I felt decent in the heat, and then we just made the right decisions. The car was really, really good in the feature.”

In a pivot of expectations, Moran ended up sweeping the night as he set quick time in his qualifying group, led every lap of his heat race and then all 50 laps of the feature. But Moran didn’t have it easy throughout the main event. It wasn’t until Moran drove under the checkered flag that all doubt departed.

“You never know about these places,” Moran said. “I was running the cushion, but the bottom was really good. The lapped cars almost passed me back and it was just hard to navigate. You knew Ricky or Bobby or whomever was going to be there. I was just running hard for 50 straight.”

Earning the lead on the initial start wasn’t much of an issue as pole-starting Garrett Alberson lagged behind from the drop of the green on the inside row.

Lapped traffic posed as the biggest threat to Moran, who had to navigate two longer green-flag runs around the lone lap-26 caution, while weaving around slower cars scattered across the tight racing surface.

Moran’s only glaring mistake came on lap 36 when his race car got hung up on the cushion at the apex of the corner instead of rotating back down the banking to carry his momentum onto the frontstretch.

“It was just so treacherous, you didn’t want to hit that thing, (the cushion toward the wall), hard at all,” said Moran, who for much of the feature ran a high-risk, high-reward groove where he “could carry a lot of speed on entry and float through the center, and then try to tag the cushion on exit.”

“It was a really fine line,” Moran said. “That one time, I just got a little too greedy, but it worked out without a doubt.”

At the time of Moran’s mistake, Thornton drew within a half second, but gave up some of his ground on the next lap when he, too, got slightly hung up along the turn-four cushion.

For Moran, he simply gathers that “the track fit my style a little tonight. And then my car was really good. It just all worked out.”

It’s not necessarily a much-needed victory for Moran heading into the Lucas Oil portion of Illinois Speedweek, but it’s certainly welcomed. Tuesday at La Salle Speedway, Moran missed the setup and was running midpack when a scrape with Tyler Erb sent him spinning and he soon retired. On Wednesday at Spoon River Speedway, he finished sixth, but his engine ran too hot, necessitating a powerplant swap.

Through three FloRacing Night in America events, he sits sixth in the standings, 57 points behind the leading Pierce, La Salle’s winner.

Moran’s not fully committed to the midweek miniseries, but rather taking it one week and one month at a time to see if it’s worth pursuing as the year progresses. Heading into Friday’s Lucas Oil tilt at Farmer City (Ill.) Raceway and Saturday at Fairbury (Ill.) Speedway, Moran might just end the week with another win or two.

During last month’s Ilini 100 at Farmer City, he was in contention both nights before a pair of spins. He also won last year’s Lucas Oil visit to Fairbury.

No matter what else comes from the week, Moran knows there’s more potential for he and his Double Down team to tap into.

“I do. When you race with Bobby, Ricky, (Jonathan Davenport) and all these guys night in and night out, you have to be up on the wheel every single night,” Moran said. “We’re getting better at it. When my guys provide me such a great race car, it’s easy to look good, I guess.”