Ricky Thornton Jr. dominated the Saturday night feature
Ricky Thornton Jr. turned in one of the dominating performances of the Dirt Late Model racing season as he led all the way in Saturday night’s Castrol FloRacing Night in America-sanctioned 2nd annual Peach State Classic at Senoia Raceway. The driver of the No. 20RT clinched second in the final standings.
The Longhorn Chassis driver from Chandler, Arizona earned $53,053 for his efforts on the track located in Senoia, Georgia in a race aired live by FloRacing.com.
Brandon Sheppard was awarded $75,000 for the Castrol FloRacing Night in America season title.
A total of 48 cars were signed in for competition
Qualifying Results:
Group A Results- 1. Garrett Alberson(13.964), 2. Hudson O’Neal, 3. Ricky Thornton Jr., 4, Dale McDowell, 5. Devin Moran, 6. Mason Zeigler
Group B Results- 1. Morgan Bagley, 2. Ricky Weiss, 3. Russell Erwin, 4. Dennis Erb Jr., 5. Chris Madden, 6. Carson Ferguson
Heat 1 Results: 1. Ricky Thornton Jr., 2. Devin Moran, 3. Mike Marlar, 4. Garrett Alberson
Heat 2 Results: 1. Hudson O’Neal, 2. Mason Zeigler, 3. Dale McDowell, 4. Ryan Gustin
Heat 3 Results: 1. Morgan Bagley, 2. Chris Madden, 3. Ashton Winger, 4. Kyle Bronson
Heat 4 Results: 1. Ricky Weiss, 2. Dennis Erb Jr., 3. Carson Ferguson, 4. Tyler Erb
B-main 1 Finish: 1. Brandon Sheppard, 2. Brian Shirley, 3. Dylan Knowles, 4. Spencer Hughes
B-main 2 Finish: 1. Wil Herrington, 2. Austin Horton, 3. Michael Page, 4. Joseph Joiner
Feature Re-cap: The start of the 75-lap main event saw Thornton take the early lead with O’Neal, Bagley, Madden and Weiss following. Thornton immediately began pulling away from the pack as Madden moved around Bagley for third on lap 5. Weiss followed suit and passed by Bagley for fourth one lap later.
Moran moved into the top-5 on lap 10 when he got by Bagley. at the same time, O’Neal and Madden began to close in on the race leader as Thornton found himself entangled with slower traffic. The fight for second continued on lap 14 while both of those cars continued to gain on Thornton.
Thornton continued to lead as the race passed the one-third mark as the battle for second calmed with Moran moving up to join the fray.
By the halfway point of the feature, Thornton had again extended his advantage leading by more than five seconds in a race that had yet to see a yellow flag. The top-5 at that time was Thornton, O’Neal, Moran, Madden and Weiss.
At the two-thirds point, Thornton found himself trapped behind a battle involving Bronson and Tyler Erb. That allowed O’Neal and Moran to narrow the gap a bit. Still, Thornton was in complete command as the laps quickly clicked away as the race continued to run caution free.
Thornton completed dominate the feature winning the caution free race by more than 9 seconds and lapping all but the top-5 cars in a race that took barely over 20 minutes.
Feature Results: 1. Ricky Thornton Jr., 2. Hudson O’Neal, 3. Devin Moran, 4. Ashton Winger, 5. Chris Madden, 6. Dennis Erb Jr., 7. Ricky Weiss, 8. Mike Marlar, 9. Kyle Bronson, 10. Garrett Alberson, 11. Ryan Gustin, 12. Tyler Erb, 13. Brandon Sheppard, 14. Morgan Bagley, 15. Austin Horton, 16. Wil Herrington, 17. Mason Zeigler, 18. Carson Ferguson, 19. Michael Page, 20. Brian Shirley, 21. Dylan Knowles, 22. Spencer Hughes, 23. Dale McDowell, 24. Joseph Joiner
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