CASA GRANDE, Ariz. (Jan. 10) — With an action-packed week at Tulsa, Okla.’s Chili Bowl Nationals looming, Ricky Thornton Jr. isn’t sure how many opportunities he’d have to race at the Wild West Shootout in front of a hometown crowd roughly 45 minutes south of his native Chandler.

In essence, he wasn’t content with anything but a win Saturday, a mindset that enabled a timely and tactical race-winning move on a lap-40 restart around Hudson O’Neal, who at that point appeared to be the car to beat aboard the Kevin Rumley-owned No. 6.

“I’m like, ‘Man, if I can stay in the moisture strip down the whole front straightaway and turn when I get to one, hell, I have to slide him,’” said the 34-year-old Thornton, winner of $38,000, including $13,000 in bonus money courtesy of Rio Grande Waste Services. “We didn’t come all this way to run second.”

Adam Family Motorsports of Cherry, Ill., fielded Thornton’s entry because it didn’t make much sense for his Mount Airy, N.C.-based Koehler Motorsports team to make the cross-country trip to Casa Grande, Ariz., only to race once, maybe twice, with their driver.

Chili Bowl Nationals commitments put Thornton on track inside the SagseNet Center beginning Sunday with practice ahead of Monday’s Race of Champions and Tuesday’s preliminary night, setting the stage for Saturday’s finale. With all that looming, Thornton used the opening half of Saturday’s 50-lap feature to get up to speed in his first night driving the Adam Family machine before sizing up his race-winning opportunity during a trio of restarts within a seven-lap span from laps 34-40.

“Before the yellow came out (on lap 34 for fourth-running Jake O’Neil), I ran across the top for one lap and I was like, ‘Man, it feels good,’” Thornton said. “But then my brother (on the stick signals) was like, ‘Nah, you’re good, just keep doing what you’re doing.’ I don’t know if I got a really good start or what. I heard them, but I couldn’t move out because if I moved out, we’d wreck both of us. He got by, and I could pace him in traffic.”

Though Thornton never allowed O’Neal to pull away, he sensed the Martinsville, Ind., driver, who led 24 laps, still had another proverbial gear in reserve.

“I could tell he was about 75 percent, and I was running pretty hard,” Thornton said. “I just had to make sure if I got to those lapped cars I could stay with him and try to make a move. I felt like I could make a couple moves and then the yellow came back out. I was like, ‘Man, there goes the race.’”

Instead, a string of cautions on laps 35, 37 and 41 worked in Thornton’s favor.

“I felt like I had a couple good starts trying to get to his left-rear getting into turn one,” he said.
On the restart with 10 laps remaining, Thornton executed his decisive move, one O’Neal couldn’t counter.

“I knew when I slid him he was gonna cross me,” Thornton said. “I figured if I could race him hard into three and make him overcharge turn three and stop and turn, and hopefully catch the traction off four, I could drive back by him. And it worked out.”

Another yellow followed with five laps remaining for Kyle Beard, forcing Thornton to execute again.

“I didn’t know if that yellow was good or bad, but I had to make sure I hit the restart right and have him do the exact same thing to me,” Thornton said. “It worked out for us.

“Obviously, I have to thank Joe Adams for giving me this opportunity to run his car. Got to thank Bobby Koehler for letting me do it, too, and Jeff and Penny Hoker are a big part of this whole deal in getting this put together.”

Thornton plans to remain in Tulsa for the remainder of the Chili Bowl, but there’s a possibility he’ll fly back to Casa Grande next Sunday for the $25,000-to-win finale. After Saturday’s victory, that possibility feels more like a promise.

"It’s definitely hard to not come back,” Thornton said. “I was telling people, if we won, I feel like we have to come back. Who knows, maybe we’ll see the 20RT again.”

The fourth-starting O’Neal, meanwhile, commanded laps 17-40 before giving way to Thornton and settling for second. He earned $22,000, including $12,000 in lap-leader bonus cash, but believed the trio of cautions in a seven-lap span between laps 35-41 gave Thornton too many chances to strike.

Before the lap-35 yellow, O’Neal held his largest lead of the night at 1.6 seconds.

“Ricky did a great job. We just kept having restarts and I knew I ran my tires pretty hard there through the middle of the race,” O’Neal said. “You don’t know if you’re going to have a caution or not. I just kept going, trying to lead every lap I could for the lap money, but also trying to get away from them so whenever we got into lapped traffic I had a little bit of a buffer.

“We just kept having restarts, and he kept getting to practice and practice. And finally, he got a run on me down here in three.”

All told, Thornton’s winning move “kind of caught me off guard,” O’Neal said.

“I seen his nose a couple times on the restarts before. As I said, he did a great job,” he added. “I probably, more so than anything, had a little more left than I did there at the end. Appreciate Kevin (Rumley) and everyone that’s a part of this K&L No. 6.”

Cade Dillard rounded out the podium in third with an impressive charge from the 16th starting spot. The Robeline, La., native snatched third from 18th-starting Ryan Gustin on a lap-46 restart.

“Hats off to the track crew. After last night (at practice), I thought there wouldn’t be much passing,” Dillard said. “We were able to come from 16th and had a really good car. The longer we ran, the more the track slowed down and the better we got. These are two really good race car drivers we’re racing with. We had a good car.”