Devin Moran
Ricky Thornton Jr. had finished every Super Late Model race he had entered so far in the early portion of the 2023 season inside the top-5, including a win on Sunday night in the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series feature at Florida’s Bubba Raceway Park. In the follow-up race to that one held on Monday evening at the same track the No. 20RT looked to be on its way to another solid result. However, a spin as the cars were about to take the white flag sent the SSI Motorsports Longhorn Chassis to the tail which ultimately brought about a 19th place finish for the current resident of Martinsville, Indiana.
Contact off the nose of another car precipitated Thornton’s spin. During post-race interviews, an apologetic eventual fifth-place finisher Devin Moran accepted full responsibility for the incident.
“I’m really sick for the simple fact for what happened with Ricky there getting into three,” Moran explained to FloRacing.com. “I was trying to make time up on the top and he parked a little bit. It was my fault, 100%. I just got into him. I hate driving like that and I didn’t mean to do it, it just happened. I’m really sorry for them guys because they’ve been working their butts off and they’ve been really fast all SpeedWeeks. I’m kind of bummed about that.”
Moran and his Double Down Motorsports team have also been performing quite well during SpeedWeeks. The No. 99 Longhorn Chassis won its first two starts in the World of Outlaws CASE Construction Late Model Series events at Volusia Speedway Park earlier in the month. And except for some misfortune, that team has performed well in the Lucas Oil races as well.
Ricky Thornton Jr. had a string of top-5 finishes until Monday
Moran has scored four top-5 finishes of his own, including those early WoO wins, and in the LOLMDS features held at Georgia’s Golden Isles Speedway and Bubba Raceway Park.
“Another top-5. It’s been a good start to SpeedWeeks,” Moran added. “We’ve had speed every night just a little bit of bad luck here and there. We’ll take this and we’ll go to All-Tech.”
The Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series portion of Georgia-Florida SpeedWeeks will continue this weekend with two events slated for All-Tech Raceway in Ellisville, Florida then to East Bay Raceway Park in Tampa from February 6th through February 11th.
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Jonathan Davenport grabs first Lucas Oil win of 2023 at Bubba
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