The hottest driver in dirt late model racing stayed hot on Wednesday night, with Ricky Thornton Jr. capturing the Castrol FloRacing Night in America Series victory over Bobby Pierce by way of a late-race pass.
The driver of the No. 20RT took advantage of a couple of late bobbles from Pierce in the A-Main.
“I feel like it’s kind of a redemption from last week,” Thornton Jr. said on the FloRacing broadcast. “We’re excited. I thought I was going to run third without all of those yellow’s – they just kind of helped me. The track kept getting trickier and trickier. I had a good shot at him, I threw a bomb, and I slowed him down enough to start throwing bombs at him.”
Pierce first bobbled with eight laps to go in the final stint, giving Thornton Jr. just the opportunity he needed.
“I felt like in (turns) 1 and 2, it wasn’t too bad, in 3 and 4, you just got so slick getting in that you’d almost enter like a car off and slide and almost hit the wall – so it made it a whole lot more fun, I think,” Thornton Jr. said. “If you wanted it, you really had to go get it.”
Pierce just made one too many bobbles, and said that he enjoyed how the final battle ended.
“He got us a little bit on the tire game there and the cautions really hurt me at the end,” Pierce said. “I think I’d abused that in the race. I made that little bobble, and then I pulled back away from him, and then I made a really big bobble. We got in a little slider battle – it was a lot of fun – I know where the break pedal’s at. A lot of people don’t, so that’s a good thing. It was pretty close and a lot of fun, that’s how you race and I race the same way. Congrats to Ricky.”
The series will take a hiatus over the summer before returning for its next race on September 12 at Fairbury. As always, all of the action for the tour can be seen live on FloRacing.
Castrol FloRacing Night in America results
Round 5
Florence Speedway
Wed. May 31, 2023
1. Ricky Thornton Jr.
2. Bobby Pierce
3. Jonathan Davenport
4. Tim McCreadie
5. Hudson O’Neal
6. Stormy Scott
7. Dennis Erb Jr.
8. Zack Dohm
9. Ricky Weiss
10. Tyler Erb
11. Brandon Sheppard
12. Garrett Alberson
13. Dustin Nobbe
14. Tim Lance
15. Daulton Wilson
16. Spencer Hughes
17. Mike Marlar
18. Adam Stricker
19. Devin Moran
20. Josh Rice
21. Kody Evans
22. Blake Creech
23. Darrell Lanigan
