ROSSBURG, Ohio — Ricky Thornton Jr. an … underdog? Could one of Dirt Late Model racing’s biggest stars really not be among the favorites to win a crown jewel event?

It’s quite an unbelievable idea, but it was the case entering the 55th annual World 100 at Eldora Speedway. Despite his reigning national-champion status and victories in four of his last five starts, Thornton’s name wasn’t being mentioned all that much by the prognosticators listing the top contenders for the checkered flag in the sport’s most prestigious race.

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Don’t think for a minute that the 34-year-old driver from Chandler, Ariz., was unaware of his relative absence from the conversation. After he proved his immense ability by capturing Saturday night’s World 100 — and its record $72,000 top prize — for the first time in his young full-fender career, he sat behind the dais in Eldora’s infield media center during the postrace press conference and acknowledged that he sensed the doubt around his chances.

“I think, probably, I had a little chip (on his shoulder), just because you see all the headlines, you hear all the announcers and everything else, and it’s like, ‘Man, like, I’m not even good enough to get talked about here,’ ” Thornton said.

Such a perceived slight becomes a motivating factor for an ultraconfident competitor like Thornton, who never considers himself unworthy of serious consideration for a victory.

“You can’t ever really count yourself out, obviously,” Thornton said, “and I felt like if I did my job right and set the car up right we were gonna be in good shape.”

Of course, Thornton did admit that his being overlooked in favor of much more accomplished Eldora racers — namely Jonathan Davenport of Blairsville, Ga., and Bobby Pierce of Oakwood, Ill., the drivers who had combined to win the last four majors at the half-mile oval — had some logic behind it. Eldora, after all, hasn’t exactly been a place where he’s excelled, especially in the track’s long-distance majors.

Thornton rolled into this year’s World 100 having never failed to qualify for the weekend finale in his 17 crown jewel attempts — Dream (eight), World 100 (six), Dirt Track World Championship (two) and Eldora Million (one) — since 2016, but he posted just three top-five finishes, including third in the 2024 DTWC, fourth in the ’23 Dream and fifth in the ’22 World 100. 

“I feel like every time I come, I’m really good at prelim nights, but then I struggle and I’m like a fifth- to 10th-place car come Saturday,” said Thornton, who won Dream semifeatures in 2023 and ’24 and a World 100 preliminary in ’18. “I think it’s probably more me just overthinking stuff and thinking we need to take our car one way.”

VIDEO: Watch the World 100 podium press conference with Ricky Thornton Jr., Dale McDowell and Nick Hoffman.

Thornton’s deep reservoir of pride pushed him to improve himself at Eldora. He not only dived into the technical side of his Longhorn Chassis with his Koehler Motorsports crew but also analyzed every detail he could about the styles of successful Eldora racers like Davenport and Dale McDowell of Chickamauga, Ga.

“I would say for me it’s kind of like being a football player,” Thornton said. “You study their race cars. You see where they’re better than you and where you need to get better overall. I feel like any time we come here, J.D.’s car steers better than anyone’s, and whenever he does steer he’s not hung out, so we work on that a lot. Obviously you know Dale’s car is always gonna be free enough where you can roll around the bottom and he never pushed across the racetrack or anything like that.

“I think all of us probably do the same thing — you go back and you watch videos, you see a million different photos with different angles and everything else, and just try to try to get your car as best as you can get it.”

Thornton tried a new approach for this year’s World 100 as well. Rather than bringing a battle-tested machine to the event, he entered a new Longhorn that he debuted just days before the start of the weekend with a triumphant run in one of Sunday’s 25-lap Baltes Classic semifeatures at Eldora.

Bobby Koehler, the 43-year-old businessman from Mount Airy, N.C., who fields Thornton’s equipment as well as teams for veteran Jimmy Owens of Newport, Tenn., and his sons Jordan and Evan, was all for Thornton running a fresh vehicle at the World 100. He had his son Jordan’s crew chief, Kenny Payton, and other team members work on assembling the car at the shop while Thornton and his Zach Frields-led crew were on a two-week Pennsylvania swing with the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series to close August. Thornton and his boys finished the car when they returned to the shop after RTJ won Aug. 30’s $30,000 Hillbilly Hundred at Lernerville Speedway in Sarver, Pa.

“We’ve had it since I think March,” Thornton said of the frame that became his Eldora ride. “Really, my other two cars have been really good, so we just haven’t ever got it out. The hard part is, we race for so much money everywhere we go, it’s hard to bring out a new car and just think, OK, we can have this bad night (figuring it out) when it’s a 25- or 30- or 50,000-to-win the race.

“So luckily we had the Baltes (Classic) on Sunday. We were able to come and shake things down and we actually found a couple problems (while winning $5,000). So I was able to do that and figured, with this week not being Lucas points, if Sunday went good, we were gonna keep racing it. Everything went good, so I think we’ll get back to the shop, clean it, and it’ll sit till the Dirt Track (World Championship on Oct. 17-18 at Eldora).”

Thornton didn’t make much noise with the car in the World 100’s preliminary programs — he finished eighth and 11th in the 25-lappers — but remarked that he used the races more as test sessions. In Friday’s race, in fact, he tried to put himself in “bad situations” to work on his car’s maneuverability.

Come the century grind, it appeared Thornton’s tinkering on the track paid off. He slipped from the pole position — he crucially earned the spot by winning the sixth heat — as far as fifth early in the headliner before exploding to the front during one critical sequence stretching from a caution flag on lap 37 through his ultimately deciding pass of the race-long leading Davenport, who started outside Thornton on the front row, for the lead on lap 42.

“So I was fourth behind Nick (Hoffman), and I felt like Nick had a way better pace than I did,” Thornton recalled. “He started battling (Chris) Madden there, and then Madden slid him and the yellow came out (on lap 37). I just got a really good restart and I actually stayed kind of high, and then we got another restart (on lap 39) and I felt like I had a good enough run where I actually entered turn one and never had to lift off the throttle.

“I think at that point J.D. was more worried about Madden and making sure to block Madden there, so that let me get to second. And then we got another restart, probably two or three laps later (lap 41), and I was able to get a really good start so J.D. couldn’t swing all the way out. He kind of entered in the middle and I thought he was gonna slide me, and he ended up not sliding me until, like, we got all the way to the back straightaway.

“I’m like, ‘Well I got a good enough run here, if I could slide him, the odds are he’s gonna cross me over and get the lead back down the front straightaway.’ And I felt like I did a good enough job where, whenever I slowed down, I didn’t really kill any momentum, so then I was able to keep my pace going off the floor and really race him into one (to take the lead).

“I just kind of did the next couple laps moving around, just trying to more block (Davenport’s) air, that way he couldn't get back by me,” he continued. “Then we got out front, and and the nice part here is obviously you can look at the (video) board going down the front straightaway and kind of tell where the guy behind you is, how close he is and stuff like that, and I was just trying to trying to set a good pace after that and not really abuse my tires.”

Thornton recalled June’s 100-lap Dream to keep himself from overdriving his car.

“I felt like the Dream I was pretty good and I was second, I was third, and I just went almost too hard, too early, and then faded really bad at the end (to an eighth-place finish),” Thornton said. “So I was just trying to set a good enough pace where if we did have a bunch of yellows the last half, quarter, that I’d have enough tires to be able to restart.”

There was one especially anxious moment for Thornton before he cemented his World 100 victory. When a caution flag flew on lap 88, the 59-year-old McDowell, who had just reached third from the 19th starting spot, restarted directly behind Thornton. McDowell proceeded to move into second on the restart as Davenport slowed with a flat right-rear tire to bring out another caution on lap 89 that put McDowell to Thornton’s outside for what would be the race’s final restart.

McDowell raced underneath Thornton through turns one and two on the restart, making Thornton think his hopes for victory were over.

“I really did,” Thornton said. “I felt like I got a really good start, and then I got to turn one, got a little tight, and then Dale got next to me and I’m like, ‘Well, if you know Dale, he’s gonna roll right around the bottom.’ And I was like, ‘Man, I just gave this thing away.’

“But I got a really good run off turn two and I was luckily able to clear him, and then I actually started running a little bit lower after that. I think I was trying to just almost carry too much momentum like I had been through traffic, and I think moving around helped me and I actually picked up a little bit of speed.”

Thornton wasn’t threatened again as he went on to beat McDowell by 1.676 seconds, but those final circuits seemed to last forever.

“When we had the last caution, I don’t know if I breathed for the last 12 laps,” said Frields, Thornton’s 44-year-old head wrench who was watching from the infield. “It’s kind of like when (Brian) Birkhofer won (the World 100) in 2012 (with Frields as crew chief). You know, we had three restarts in the last nine laps and Scott (Bloomquist) was next to us.

“Well, I’m watching this time and I’m thinking, If this Dale gets a restart, we’re in trouble. I didn’t know exactly what we had left, but this Dale was driving the hell out of it. It just makes you nervous, because everybody knows how good Dale is and how good he’s been this weekend. It doesn't matter where he starts, he’s going to be good here.

“The nerves were there, but then we get the restart and we got out eight, 10 cars or whatever,” he added. “And it’s like, ‘OK, we’re maintaining pretty good with them.’ You just kind of hold your breath though. I knew our stuff was good and Ricky’s a very, very smart driver, but you’re still thinking, I hope the tires stay. You just hope nothing ruins your night.”

Thornton made it to the finish unscathed (though he did have a right-rear tire going down in the final circuits). He drove across the scales, passed the droop check, and parked on the vaunted Eldora winner’s stage where he was met by his beaming family and team, including Bobby Koehler.

“We got a few races that we want to try to win as a team, as a bucket list, just to say we’ve done it, and I walked up to him and I hit him on the chest and my exact words was, ‘You got what you wanted, right?’ ” said Koehler, who brought Thornton on board in July 2024 after Thornton’s release by SSI Motorsports. “He said, ‘You did too.’ ”

Indeed, Koehler was thrilled to become a World 100-winning car owner after sharing a Lucas Oil Series title with Thornton last year. He was happier, though, for his crew and pledged to do something special for them to show his appreciation.

“I told them all if we won it, I’d buy the whole team globes,” Koehler said, referring to the iconic globe trophy that the race winning driver and owner receive. “That's what all the team wants. They want a globe. I don’t even know who to get ‘em from, but I told the team I would supply ‘em. I said, ‘Y’all bust your butt, you deserve it.’ ”

Thornton, meanwhile, basked in the glow of a World 100 triumph that cemented his lofty status in the Dirt Late Model division. He checked the box that’s most important for a driver in his current discipline.

“I honestly feel like you could win every race but Eldora, and it’d be like, ‘He’s not good enough to win Eldora. He’s not a great race car driver,’ ” said Thornton, who since becoming a full-time Dirt Late Model driver in 2020 has won five other crown jewel events (2021 DTWC, ’23 Prairie Dirt Classic, ’23 Knoxville Nationals, ’23 and ’24 Firecracker 100). “I mean, you get tired of hearing how you’re good but you can’t get it done there. Either the 49 (Davenport), the 32 (Pierce), Dale (McDowell), there’s so many other guys that have had really good success here, and really, I feel like that’s where people look at a career. Like if you can win at Eldora, then you really did something.

“I feel like probably my signature career win (previously) was probably the Dirt Track (World Championship) at Portsmouth (Ohio) just because it was early in my career, as far as Late Model-wise. So this one is probably a little more special, just because I got to race J.D., I got to race Madden, I got to race (third-finishing) Nick (Hoffman). Luckily I didn’t have to race Dale, otherwise, for where he started, I think if Dale started on the front row, it probably would have been a snoozer honestly.”

Most of all, Thornton was able to experience the utter joy of standing on Eldora’s winner’s stage in front of a record crowd.

“It was awesome,” Thornton said. “It feels like one of those … almost like it’s your first win all over again, just because there’s so many people here and the crowd’s so loud whether they’re cheering, booing, whatever, and there’s 50 photographers up there.

“So I go back to my 14-year-old self, and that’s where you always wanted to be. You wanted to be a race car driver, you wanted to be there on the top step. I’m gonna cherish it for a while.”