Ricky Thornton Jr. is a bona fide superstar in the open-wheel modified ranks. The Dirt Late Model world thinks pretty highly of his talent, too, thanks to his numerous fine performances in limited starts over the past few years.

But after the 29-year-old Chandler, Ariz., native began the 2020 season in January with nine starts in a Dirt Late Model fielded by his buddy and fellow racer Casey Skyberg of Rapid City, S.D. — three World of Outlaws Morton Buildings Late Model Series shows at Vado (N.M.) Speedway Park and six Keyser Manufacturing Wild West Shootout events at Arizona Speedway in Queen Creek in which he didn’t produce personally satisfying results — some doubt about his viability as a full-fender racer crept into his mind.

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“We started the year at Vado, and frankly I wasn’t very good,” Thornton said. “At the Wild West Shootout I had a couple decent runs; the one night (Jan. 11’s miniseries opener) I think we could’ve won but I screwed up and got over the cushion (ceding the lead after pacing 28 laps and ultimately finishing third in the 40-lap feature). Other than that, we really haven’t been super competitive. You almost start to wonder, ‘Is the Late Model really meant for me?’ ”

Then came the last two weeks, a stretch during which Thornton reunited with Indiana team owners Todd and Vicki Burns to run high-profile Dirt Late Model races in the Midwest and promptly flipped the script of his future that had been building inside his head. He captured his first-ever WoO triumph in May 23’s Drydene Double Down Invitational finale at Jackson (Minn.) Motorplex — a $20,000 score that matched his career-high payday — and missed going back-to-back in WoO competition on May 29 when he lost a photo finish to Brandon Sheppard of New Berlin, Ill., at the quarter-mile Davenport (Iowa) Speedway.

And buoyed by those head-turning outings, Thornton was one of 44 drivers invited to participate in this weekend’s spectator-free Dirt Late Model Stream Invitational at Eldora Speedway in Rossburg, Ohio.

From uncertainty about his Dirt Late Model prospects to a driver being discussed as a favorite to make noise on Eldora’s stage in a virtual blink of an eye — yes, it’s been a resounding turn of events for Thornton.

“I think after the last couple weeks it’s kind of reassuring that yeah, you can do it,” Thornton said. “You gain so much confidence going out and running well rather than running 15th every time. I was starting to wonder there for a little bit if I could still do it or not (in a Dirt Late Model).”

It would seem that Todd Burns didn’t harbor much doubt about Thornton’s potential. A 59-year-old Hoosier from Morgantown, Ind., who owns and operates a construction company, Sub-Surface of Indiana, and a farm, Burns fielded his SSI Motorsports cars for Hudson O’Neal of Martinsville, Ind., from 2016 through the end of the ’19 season. He became acquainted with Thornton through his team’s crewman Taylon Center, a 27-year-old Arizona native who developed a close friendship with Thornton while both were young kids watching their fathers race at tracks in their home state, and hired Thornton to drive his car for the final months of the 2018 campaign while O’Neal was sidelined by shoulder surgery. Thornton returned to SSI Motorsports last season for a few starts in a team car, including the Knoxville Nationals and the Dirt Track World Championship.

While Burns’s 2020 racing plans were uncertain after he split with O’Neal last fall, he fielded a Rocket car that his son, Austin, ran in February’s Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series Winternationals at East Bay Raceway Park in Gibsonton, Fla. Shortly thereafter, Center informed Thornton that Burns was interested in putting together a deal to enter Eldora’s crown jewel events this season.

“We were just kind of talking, and Taylon said Todd wanted to go run Eldora for the Dream and the World,” Thornton said. “After I ran Austin’s car at Portsmouth, at the Dirt Track (last October), we kind of talked a little bit after that (about possible future races), but I wasn’t really quite sure if I’d get to run this year or not. I don’t know that if with everything else going on that Todd just wanted to go racing a little or if Talon talked him into it, but we kind of figured we’d do a little bit of stuff.

“(Burns) still had his Longhorn cars (driven by O’Neal), he didn’t sell them yet. It’s kind of hard (as a team owner) to have a car sit there when the Dream was supposed to pay $126,000 this year and (Eldora’s) not that far from the house (for Burns), so we ended up getting one of the Longhorn cars ready.

“I actually picked up a brand new modified in March — I had to go to North Carolina — and then on the way back I stopped there (at the SSI Motorsports shop in Indiana) and worked on it some (with Center).”

In May, as racing began restarting in pockets of the country after its lengthy shutdown due to the coronavirus crisis and there remained some fleeting hope that Eldora’s Dream would still run as scheduled on June 4-6, Thornton and Center got the go-ahead from Burns to attempt the scheduled May 15-16 WoO doubleheader at Federated Auto Parts Raceway at I-55 in Pevely, Mo., in order to turn some competitive laps before Eldora. Thornton traveled back to the SSI Motorsports headquarters — from his current residence in Adel, Iowa, where he relocated at the beginning of 2019 to be more centrally located for modified racing and now lives with his wife, Shea, and their sons Asher, who turns 2 in July, and Blane, 6 months — before I-55 to further prep the car, but a rainy weather pattern canceled the weekend early.

“Once that rained out we figured we’d go run Jackson,” Thornton said. “Pretty much all we had to do was get tires ready because the car was done, so we went there. That turned out way better than we thought it was going to.”

Indeed, Thornton was downright spectacular, though his weekend at Jackson started rather quietly with a sixth-place finish in Friday night’s 30-lap preliminary feature. He came out of that program with a pretty good feeling about his chances in the finale.

“I wouldn’t say we were the best car, but we weren’t the worst car either,” Thornton said of his Friday effort. “That was the first time I ever ran a Longhorn car and we had a new, different style motor from Clements, a new carburetor from Winning Edge that we were almost testing for them, so we were just getting all that stuff good.”

After winning a heat race and drawing the pole for Saturday’s 60-lapper, Thornton led the event’s first lap before settling in behind Chad Simpson of Mount Vernon, Iowa. He spent much of the distance running Simpson ragged before finally, on lap 53, Simpson stumbled in turn two, allowing Thornton to bolt in front for good.

“I was good enough I could kind of move around the racetrack and kind of see where I was best,” Thornton recalled. “I was able to move around and figure out where I was better than he was and where he was better than I was. It’s just kind of worked out where I was able to put enough pressure on him and finally he made that one mistake and got over the cushion.

“I saw him get tight and turn hard left to try and get below the cushion. I almost jumped the cushion myself watching him jump the cushion. I was like, ‘Don’t do that!’ It was one of those deals where he messed up and I was like, ‘Here’s my shot,’ and you’re not really paying attention to your car, you’re paying attention to his car at that point.

“We had that restart with like six to go and that probably was the most nervous I’ve ever been in a race car,” he added. “As a kid growing up you just always dream of being able to race with the World of Outlaws guys, so to put yourself in a position where you can win a race with them, it’s pretty crazy.”

The milestone triumph was an absolute thrill for Thornton, who enjoyed victory lane with his family and Center and then found himself accepting congratulatory texts and phone calls well into the night and through the ensuing days.

“I was excited,” said Thornton, whose previous $20,000 victory behind the wheel of his modified in the 2017 Race For Hope 74 at Batesville Motor Speedway in Locust Grove, Ark. “Taylon, he was on the quad in the infield giving me signals and he was going crazy. That’s probably the most excited I’ve ever seen him. The part that was really cool too was my wife and my boys were there.

“All the other crew guys (from competing Late Model teams), they all seemed pretty excited that we’d done it, too. I don’t get to race with them a lot, but whenever we do, it seems a lot of the Late Model guys really get along and they’re happy for each other. That kind of made it really cool too. You can go up and talk to those guys, and if you need help, they’ll help. It almost seems like sometimes you’ll go to a mod show and it’s the complete opposite, where it’s like, if you’re in the clique, you’re in the clique, and if you’re not than they don’t care about you.”

Thornton added that his “phone was blowing up” after the race. “A lot of old friends and people you race with who you don’t really expect them to really say anything (messaged) … by far the most people I’ve ever had congratulate me. A lot of surprising, different people who write you, people you probably haven’t talked to for five or six years, when you win a race like that.”

With his Late Model breakthrough still fresh in his mind, Thornton came oh-so-close to duplicating the victory six days later in the opener of Davenport’s Inside-Out weekend. He battled Sheppard, the reigning WoO champion, right down to the wire in the 30-lapper; the pair crossed the finish line side-by-side with Thornton on the bottom and Sheppard propelling his Rocket Chassis house car hard on the extreme outside of the homestretch.

The finish was so tight — a mere seven-thousandths of a second in favor of Sheppard on the transponder scoring — that WoO officials didn’t immediately declare a winner. Both Sheppard and Thornton pulled into victory lane wondering who would be the one to celebrate.

“We were all just kind of sitting there waiting,” Thornton said. “We all congratulated each other, like me and Brandon, our crews. I don’t think the officials kind of knew what was going on either. Realistically, it was probably only a two- or three-minute wait, but for us it seemed like an hour, just because we were like, ‘Do we know? Do we not know?’ ”

WoO rules stipulate that the transponder scoring is used at the determining factor. After officials checked the placement of the transponders on the two cars, Sheppard was handed the checkered flag.

Thornton, however, realized later that the location of his transponder might have cost him the win.

“It’s kind of a bittersweet one,” Thornton said. “Obviously we were super excited. We started ninth, we ended up second. It wasn’t a huge money-paying win ($6,000), but it still would’ve been cool to say we went back-to-back and got our first and second (WoO wins) right away.

“But anyway, the Late Model rule is you can have your transponder on the (front) bumper of the car. Well, what ended up happening is, Talon put it on the mid-plate because he was always told the red transponder has to be a certain angle otherwise it doesn’t pick up right, so that’s where he always puts it. Whenever (the officials) checked us in tech afterwards to make sure that we both had ours in the same spot, they saw the (transponder) pouch on our bumper and assumed our transponder was there and not on the mid-plate. So realistically, ours was probably two-and-a-half, three-foot farther back (than Sheppard’s).

“It’s a pretty big difference. We were trying to figure it out (mathematically), and kind of what we came up with is, we lost by just over an inch, so had it been farther forward I think we would’ve been fine. But it was kind of our own fault where we had the transponder.”

There was no definitive video or photo of Sheppard and Thornton shot right at the finish line that could provide proof of the outcome beyond the transponder scoring. Many people pointed toward a picture that photographer Mike Ruefer snapped that appeared to show Thornton ahead of Sheppard, but that wasn’t at the official start-finish line.

“From what they’re telling me, there’s a white line on the wall before the start/finish line, and that’s where the scorers score, and then about 15 feet later there’s a red line and that’s where the transponder loop is,” Thornton said, noting that both lines are visible in Ruefer’s photo. “To the visual eye it was too close to tell.

“I think at that white line I probably was ahead of (Sheppard) by so much, but once we got to the red one he might have been ahead of me … and I know by time we got to turn one he was all the way a car length ahead of me.

“We can’t take nothing away from Brandon,” he continued. “Just to be able to be that close to him, it makes us excited. We’ve learned from it, and now we’ll always make sure (the transponder) goes on that spot.”

After Thornton’s Davenport weekend ended with a 12th-place finish in Saturday’s 40-lapper on the half-mile — he advanced from 17th to the top 10 in just 10 laps but then had to pit because a broken right-rear wheel cut his tire — his focus immediately shifted to Eldora. He was worried that he might be left on the outside looking in for the Stream Invitational because his racing discipline leans largely to the modified side, so he was relieved when he received an invitation last Friday afternoon.

“Once they made it the invitational deal we really didn’t know if we’d even get in,” said Thornton, who won a World 100 preliminary subbing for O’Neal in 2018 and has started the Dream finale twice and the World 100 once. “I’ve been there a couple times, but I’m not really a Late Model driver. I get in one every now and then.”

When it was suggested to Thornton that his first career WoO triumph was very well-timed to help his case for an Eldora invitation, he offered a sheepish response.

“That’s what I’m thinking,” he said with a laugh. “It had to help.”

Thornton certainly is a confident driver heading to Dirt Late Model racing’s most famous track.

“We had two really good nights (at Jackson and Davenport), and then third night we didn’t have really good results but I still felt like we had one of the best cars,” Thornton said. “So heading to Eldora, I wouldn’t say we have an advantage, but I think mentally, I don’t see any reason why we can’t go run well. Our end goal obviously is to win, but as long as everything goes right we should be able run top five, top 10.

“We had the preliminary win a couple years ago for the World, and it’s kind of weird (racing there) — you have to be aggressive, but you have to patient there. I don’t know if it’s just because I’m kind of up on the wheel but not so aggressive that I don’t kill my stuff, but the track just kind of fits me well.”

The select group of all-star drivers comprising the Stream’s field figures to make the competition extremely stiff, Thornton mused.

“I think it’s gonna make qualifying that much harder,” Thornton said. “Like before, you could qualify really good and not get an easier heat race, but it won’t be as stacked. Now, every race that you’re in, it’s gonna be like, realistically, one of those guys can win the feature. Competition-wise, it’s gonna be way better than it’s ever been. You’re not gonna be able to skate through things just being ‘all right.’ I think your car’s gonna have to be on point, the driver’s gonna have to be good … one little mess up could be huge.”

Thornton is hopeful that his run of success will continue. With no commitment from Burns for races going forward, continuing to run up front is the best way for him to force Burns into making more starts this season.

“If we can go out and at least win one of the nights at Eldora, that should help out some,” smiled Thornton, whose 17 overall victories so far this season (11 modified, five IMCA stock car in Arizona, 1 Late Model) might make him the country’s winning dirt-track driver. “I guess as long as we can go out and him not lose money, that would probably help.”