CASA GRANDE, Ariz. (Jan. 10) — When Ricky Thornton Jr. stopped his race car in victory lane after winning Saturday’s 50-lap Rio Grande Waste Services Wild West Shootout opener at Central Arizona Raceway, the scene in front of him was especially joyous.

This was, after all, a homecoming for Thornton, who grew up some 45 minutes away in Chandler, Ariz., and cut his racing teeth at Phoenix-area tracks like Central Arizona before heading off to the Midwest and becoming a superstar. An abundant number of familiar faces was waiting to greet him.

But perhaps the most excited person in the raucous group was a relative newcomer to Thornton’s circle: Joe Adam, the team owner from outside Fayetteville, N.C., who on the virtual eve of the Wild West Shootout’s start agreed to field an entry for the 35-year-old Dirt Late Model titan so he could at least make a cameo appearance in his home-state miniseries before spending the rest of the week focused on the Chili Bowl Midget Nationals in Tulsa, Okla.

Adam was a bundle of energy amid the postrace scene, hugging and high-fiving everybody around him. His 20-year-old son, Daniel, a fourth-year Dirt Late Model driver who finished 16th in the feature after retiring with a broken upper A-frame bolt in his new Rocket Chassis, parked his car near the conglomeration to join in the celebration as well.

“Definitely pulling into victory lane and seeing how pumped Joe was …” Thornton said, his voice trailing off a moment. “I think it was like he finally let out, like, a sigh of relief, like, ‘Yeah, we can do this.’ I’m glad I could get a win for him.”

A driver of Thornton’s immense talent has a knack for making a car owner’s day. He does it on a regular basis for North Carolina’s Bobby Koehler, who since mid-2024 has fielded Thornton’s Dirt Late Model program. He needed just one try to do it for Adam, who has been in the game for several years with limited success.

Winning a high-profile national event worth a whopping $38,000 — including $13,000 in lap-leader bonuses that Thornton collected from Wild West Shootout title sponsor Rio Grande Waste Services — overwhelmed Adam. He won a $5,000 MARS-sanctioned race in 2024 at Tri-City Speedway in Granite City, Ill., with his son driving and a $6,064 Comp Cams Super Dirt Series show in ’25 at Springfield (Mo.) Raceway with Dillon McCowan of Urbana, Mo., behind the wheel, but Thornton’s checkered flag rose to a new level.

Still savoring the experience while standing outside his hauler in the pit area after the race, Adam acknowledged the personal significance of his night with RTJ. It provided some validation to the quality of the race team that he’s put together.

“It’s definitely up there,” said Adam, who lives in North Carolina but run his team out of a shop in Cherry, Ill. “There’s Daniel’s first big MARS win down at Tri-City — I mean, obviously, being his father, that’s a big one.

“But there was a lot of people (after Thornton was announced as driving Adam’s car at Central Arizona) who were like, ‘Oh, you know, he’s just coming down to run. He’s just coming out here because it’s Arizona. He’s not really going to put on a show.’ ”

Adam never had any doubt that Thornton could get the job done for him.

“I told him, I said, ‘Get the check. That’s what we’re here to do — get the check,’ ” Adam said. “He’s an incredible driver. Like I said in victory lane, if it’s a wheelbarrow race, you put him a half a lap behind, he’ll still figure out how to win it.”

The deal pairing Thornton with Adam came together quickly just before the new year. Thornton, seeking a ride for a night or two of the Wild West Shootout around his Chili Bowl commitments, had one potential opportunity fall through before Jeff Hoker, an Iowa trucking company owner who sponsors both Thornton and Adam (as well as the Wild West Shootout), connected him with Adam.

“I know Ricky, and I know Bobby Koehler, and Jeff Hoker got ahold of me, and he’s just like, ‘Hey, look, you know, you’re more than welcome to say no, no pressure, but what do you think about Ricky driving for you (in Arizona)?’ ” Adam said. “I’m like, ‘I have another car. We’ll get it done. We’ll have the car there and everything.’”

Thornton was appreciative of Adam’s last-minute largesse.

“I’ve talked to Daniel (Adam) some at the racetrack, but I wouldn’t say we had a relationship really at all,” Thornton said. “But the ride I was going to do, I ended up not doing it, it ended up not coming and stuff like that, and I told Hoker that and Hoker got ahold of Joe and was like, ‘Hey, like, what do you think about doing this one night?’ And he was super open about it. And then, like, Bobby and Joe talk all the time, so Bobby was super cool with it. 

“I knew it was going to be good enough equipment. It was just a matter of coming out and doing it.”

Thornton even picked up transportation to Arizona and the Chili Bowl in the process. Adam is a licensed pilot and owns a six-seat plane, and Friday he landed in Greensboro, N.C., to pick up Thornton and take him on to Arizona. He planned to fly Thornton to Tulsa, Okla., after Saturday’s Wild West Shootout action as well.

Adam watched Thornton go to work on his Longhorn Chassis as soon as he arrived at Central Arizona for Friday’s practice night. It already was wrapped with Thornton’s familiar No. 20rt and Thornton added his setup touches to the machine. 

“Ricky knows exactly what he wants on his Longhorn, so when he came in, he took everything off, got it ready,” Adam said of the car, which had about five races on it, including McCowan’s victory last August.

Thornton knew he had a contending car after shaking it down on Friday. His biggest adjustment was getting used to the Pro Power Ford engine under the hood.

“All these years, I’ve never tested a Ford, nothing,” Thornton said. “And he said he had a Ford, and I wasn’t leery about it, but I just knew I’ve always heard they’re different. So on practice night we changed gears a couple different times, just trying to get it as close to how I normally feel with our stuff.

“And it ran really good. It’s probably a little bit smoother up until like the mid-range compared to our other (Chevy) stuff, but like the top (end), it still runs really good too. It’s just gearing was a little bit different.

“We didn’t push restrictors in or nothing like that,” he added. “That way I could just get used to the power, and I felt like I did a good job. A couple of restarts (during the feature) I wheelspun a little bit, but I figured no one probably had a perfect restart every time.”

One restart, in fact, won Thornton the race. After ceding the lead to Hudson O’Neal of Martinsville, Ind., on lap 17, he regained it with a slider through turns one and two on a lap-40 restart. 

Adam watched Thornton’s race craft with a sense of awe.

“When you’re the leader, you don’t know the line,” Adam said. “And so when he saw the line that Huddy was running and stuff like that, and then when Huddy left the line open on the bottom on that restart, Ricky said, ‘If I see it again on the second restart, I’m going to take it.’ And Huddy left the bottom open going into one and Ricky said, ‘I had to jump on it.’

“I didn’t want to see that caution with five to go,” he continued. “We had like a straightaway lead, so I was like, ‘No!’ But he held on.”

Thornton won by 1.764 seconds over the K&L Rumley Enterprises No. 6 piloted by the 25-year-old O’Neal, who earned $12,000 in lap-leader bonuses himself to push his runner-up earnings to $22,000. It was Thornton’s second career Wild West Shootout triumph — five years to the day since his previous win in 2021 at the closed Arizona Speedway in Queen Creek — and gave him another victory in his first start with a car owner.

“The first race I ever ran a Late Model was for Jeff Manka and I won the first night,” Thornton said. “Obviously, that was a local race and it wasn't this caliber, at (Arizona’s) Canyon Speedway Park. The only (instance) I’d say would be close in caliber to this was the $100,000 stock car race (in 2024 at 300 Raceway in Farley, Iowa) — same deal, I never drove that car and hopped in it and won. Different people, but kind of the same. Like, you knew there was 15 guys you had to outrun. That’s kind of how I felt this was.

“It feels real good to win a race for somebody like this. Joe, he’s spending who knows how much money coming up-and-down the road, and they’ve won some races, but not of this caliber. Daniel’s gotten way better, and like tonight, he was really good (including timing fourth-fastest in qualifying), so hopefully he has a really good rest of the week.”

Thornton, unfortunately, won’t be around to see any more of the Wild West Shootout — at least, it’s unlikely. His Chili Bowl effort takes precedence now, beginning with practice Sunday. He’s scheduled for a Race of Champions event Monday, to compete Tuesday for a qualifying night and to stick around to help out his teammates during their qualifying programs on Wednesday and Friday before, he hopes, bidding for victory in Saturday’s finale.

While he didn’t rule out returning to Arizona for Jan. 18’s $25,000-to-win finale, he viewed Saturday as he one chance to win a Wild West Shootout feature this year. He made the most of it, winning with roughly three dozen people close to him — including his parents, younger brother Justin and his fiancee, cousin Junior and his wife and kids and various sponsors and friends from his Arizona roots — on hand.

“I wanted to make sure this one counted,” Thornton said. “Or actually, I wanted to make sure no one could sweep (the six-race miniseries). That’s what I’ll go with.”

Adam certainly relished the moment. He pledged that he would have no problem flying to Tulsa anytime during the week to pick up Thornton if he wanted to run another Wild West Shootout event

“I don’t wish him any bad luck at the Chili Bowl, but if it means ends up in like a J-main or whatever (on Saturday) and he decides he wants to come back, he’s more than welcome to,” said Adam, who will miss Sunday’s program because he has a business meeting on Monday in Illinois but plans to return to watch his son in the final four miniseries events. “I’d love to have him back here.”

Adam enjoyed every minute of his brief partnership with a Dirt Late Model superstar.

“I’ll tell you, more of what learned about Ricky was his personality,” said Adam, whose racing plans for 2026 include his son chasing the MARS circuit. “Like, he’s very, very humble. He’ll talk to everybody. And, like, he’s an open book on helping with setups, and what do we need to do, and helping Daniel.

“That’s more what a lot of people don’t see about Ricky. You know, they see he’s winning, and of course he’s got his fans that cheer him on and ones that are kind of like with Bobby (Pierce), they don’t like seeing Bobby win all the time. But he’s very humble. I mean, see him over there talking with people right now, and signing autographs? He’ll take time for everybody. 

“It was awesome,” he added, summing up his experience with Thornton. “I’m proud for everybody — the crew works their butt off, and Ricky’s a helluva driver. I’m glad we got to do it.”