ZANESVILLE, Ohio (July 1) — Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series announcer James Essex summed up the current situation on the national tour with a single comment late in Saturday’s Freedom 60 at Muskingum County Speedway.

“It’s Ricky Thornton Jr.’s world,” Essex said, “and we’re all just living in it.”

Indeed, Thornton, 32, of Chandler, Ariz., is on a spectacular roll, one he extended with yet another convincing victory at the Moran family’s 3/8-mile oval. He glided past race-long pacesetter Brandon Overton of Evans, Ga., for the lead on lap 26 and wasn't seriously challenged the rest of way in pocketing $30,000.

It was the third consecutive weekend that Thornton captured a big-money Lucas Oil Series event in his SSI Motorsports Longhorn Chassis— following back-to-back $50,000 scores in the Mountain Moonshine Classic at Smoky Mountain Speedway in Maryville, Tenn., and the Firecracker 100 at Lernerville Speedway in Sarver, Pa. — and gave him nine full-field victories on the circuit among his 17 overall Dirt Late Model checkered flags in 2023.

Thornton easily handled restarts on laps 42 and 46 to cross the finish line 2.508 seconds in front of Watertown, N.Y.’s Tim McCreadie, the reigning Lucas Oil Series champion who settled for the $15,000 runner-up check ins Paylor Motorsports Longhorn car after grabbing the position from Hudson O’Neal of Martinsville, Ind., following the lap-46 caution period.

Max Blair of Centerville, Pa., finished third after making a stirring charge from the 22nd starting in his Briggs Transport Rocket mount. He reached third on lap 53 when he nipped O’Neal at the start-finish line and was less than 1 second behind McCreadie at the race’s conclusion.

O’Neal settled for a fourth-place finish in the Rocket Chassis house car after running second twice (laps 4-19 and 29-42). Devin Moran of Dresden, Ohio, completed the top five at his home track after surviving a last-corner scrape with Daulton Wilson of Fayetteville, N.C., that sent Wilson spinning into the turn-four wall just short of the finish line as Moran sped away.

The fourth-starting Thornton never ran a lap lower than third, but it took him roughly one-third of the distance to truly get rolling. He had to battle past O’Neal for second before sliding past Overton for the lead on the 26th circuit.

“I didn’t really feel good up top (early in the distance),” Thornton said. “Hudson and T-Mac were really good up there, and it was like they moved down for traffic and kind of slowed down and I just kind of moved out and got a lot better.”

Once in command there was no stopping Thornton, who handled the two late-race restarts with little trouble.

“It actually probably made the track a little bit racier I think, just because on the restarts you’d kind of move around a lot and you could find a different line that worked,” Thornton said when asked if the caution flags had dulled his rhythm. “It probably helped me more than anything to be able to fire off on the bottom. I kind of knew where I needed to pick up the pace.”

Thornton, who started his weekend with a $3,000 victory in Friday’s third 20-lap semifeature, credited his crew for the hours they put into overhauling his car following the rough-and-tumble preliminary program.

“We tore up a lot of stuff last night,” said Thornton, who pushed his 2023 Lucas Oil Series earnings over the $250,000 mark. “I gotta give a big shout out to D.J. (Williams), (crew chief Anthony) Burroughs and (Christopher) Jayko. They worked their butt off so we could come out and have a really good night again.”

It was an evening that extended Thornton’s Lucas Oil Series points lead to 245 points over O’Neal, though he brushed off pit reporter Dustin Jarrett’s suggestion that he might be starting to think about winning the tour championship.

“At the end of the day, once you get to Eldora (Speedway for October’s season-ending Dirt Track World Championship) you just want to be in the top four in points,” Thornton said, noting the new Lucas Oil Series championship format that will pit the four highest-ranked drivers in the points after the next-to-last event in a NASCAR-like race-off for the $200,000 title. “It’s pretty cool to be able to be the point leader. I mean, as a little kid growing up, what you always wanted to be was on top of what you want to do, and I’ve always wanted to be a Late Model driver so it’s pretty cool.

“But the way the format is this year, as long as you’re in that top four leaving Pittsburgh (in October), then when you get to Eldora you’ll have a shot at it.”

McCreadie, 49, fruitlessly chased Thornton for the final 14 laps of the feature, but he was satisfied with his second-place finish.

“He’s definitely got the car to beat everywhere we go,” McCreadie said of Thornton. “I’m happy for our night. We haven’t been really on the same straightaway with him in two months, so (his improvement is) all because of these guys in the shop, the Longhorn guys in the shop and my three guys. We’ve all been trying to put our heads together to get to fifth (place) once in awhile before we can start tackling where the 20 (Thornton) is at, so it was a great weekend for us.

“It’s amazing that we’ve been able to dig back into this (championship) thing, because sometimes when you’re off you can’t figure it out all year long, so I owe everybody at Longhorn a big thank you and all these (crew) guys. If we can knock another chunk off, we’re gonna be fun to race with.

“Now’s not the time to quit,” he added. “I’m lacking in the middle (of the track). Ricky can turn the center better and he can enter a little wider than I can, so it’s about me driving a little better and (finding) just one little thing instead of a half second.”

McCreadie mentioned that his car “didn’t fire well” at the start of the race, which caused him to not lead a lap despite starting on the pole and to fall back to fifth following the last of three restarts on lap two.

“We’ve been firing good all weekend so I tried to adjust this car to where it would be maybe good later and it got me in trouble with the first couple starts,” McCreadie said.

The 33-year-old Blair was the most unexpected driver on the podium — especially after he started so far back in the field after a flat tire late in a Friday semifeature forced him to run Saturday’s consolation.

“We just had a really good car all weekend,” Blair said. “I really wish that race last night played out differently. I’d have gladly ran third there and started eighth tonight rather than 22nd, but it was a lot of fun. Thinking back to how many cars we just drove by, it’s pretty surreal. I didn’t really think this was how the day was gonna end up, but it was a lot of fun.”

Five caution flags slowed the race, including three on lap two: for a Doug Drown spin in turn two, a Clint Keenan-Jesse Wisecarver tangle and a six-car pileup in turn four that saw Spencer Hughes’s car stuck between Garrett Smith and Earl Pearson Jr.

The later cautions were triggered by a second Drown spin in turn four on lap 42 and Hughes’s right-rear flat tire on lap 46.

Feature lineup

Row 1: Tim McCreadie, Brandon Overton
Row 2: Hudson O'Neal, Ricky Thornton Jr.
Row 3: Devin Moran, Daulton Wilson
Row 4: Jonathan Davenport, Ross Robinson
Row 5: Todd Brennan, Doug Drown
Row 6: Matt Cosner, Tyler Carpenter
Row 7: Garrett Smith, Garrett Alberson
Row 8: Tyler Bruening, Cody Scott
Row 9: Rob Anderzack, Boom Briggs
Row 10: Spencer Hughes, Tyler Erb
Row 11: Jesse Wisecarver, Max Blair
Row 12: Earl Pearson Jr., Clint Keenan

Pole Shuffle

Tim McCreadie earned the right to start first in the Freedom 60 with a pair of victories in the STAKT Products Tournament Challenge, beating Ricky Thornton Jr. in the second round and then Brandon Overton in the final. The New Yorker picked up $700 for his pair of 2-lap wins, including $500 for winning the pole shuffle comprised of the winners and runners-up in Friday’s semifeatures.

Overton landed a berth in the final against McCreadie after beating Devin Moran in Round 1 and pulling off an outside pass off turn two on Hudson O’Neal to capture his second round matchup. The Georgian will start from the outside pole in the feature.

Consolation results

(10 laps; top four transfer)

Consolation finish: Spencer Hughes, Tyler Erb, Jesse Wisecarver, Max Blair, Nathon Loney, Eddie Carrier Jr., Seth Daniels, Brent Vosbergen, Clint Keenan (DNS) Caiden Black, Cody Rogers, John Tweed, George Klintworth, Chase Frohnapfel, Earl Pearson Jr.

Consolation lineup

(10 laps; top four transfer)

Row 1: Spencer Hughes, Nathon Loney
Row 2: Eddie Carrier Jr., Jesse Wisecarver
Row 3: Max Blair, Caiden Black
Row 4: Cody Rogers, John Tweed
Row 5: Tyler Erb, Clint Keenan
Row 6: George Klintworth, Seth Daniels
Row 7: Chase Fronhapel, Earl Pearson Jr.

Saturday’s schedule

(All times local)
2 p.m.: Pits open
3 p.m.: Grandstands open
6 p.m.: On-track activity