Batesville Motor Speedway
Rice's Topless debut bid eventually gets flattened
By Kevin Kovac
DirtonDirt senior writer
Josh Rice (11) battles Ricky Thornton Jr. (20rt) for the lead. (heathlawsonphotos.com)
LOCUST GROVE, Ark. (Aug. 15) — Josh Rice was down, but he certainly wasn’t out. In fact, he was in surprisingly good spirits after his bid for a $50,000 victory in Saturday’s 34th annual Ace Doran Topless 100 at Batesville Motor Speedway was dashed by a blown tire with the finish just 11 laps away. | RaceWire
Sure, the loss was a heartbreaker for the burgeoning 28-year-old star from Crittenden, Ky., and his JRR Motorsports squad. But the hit was much easier to take with the driver and team just one week removed from Rice’s mindblowing Sunoco North-South 100 triumph at Florence Speedway in Union, Ky.
While the Topless 100 weekend turned the page for Rice and Co. following the emotions of Florence, the North-South high was still real. Winning a second crown jewel event in as many weeks — and at a track Rice had never previously visited — would have simply been gravy on top of a career highlight.
“It would have been really cool to back that (North-South) up, but that’s part of it,” Rice said while standing in street clothes in Batesville’s emptying pit area after settling for a 14th-place finish. “I mean, to come from 22nd to the lead and then almost make it last, it’s pretty cool.”
Rice, a Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series rookie, remained upbeat rather than disappointed, but why not? There was plenty for him to be proud about in the wake of his nearly spectacular Batesville debut.
Friday’s twin 25-lap preliminary was a rough introduction to the high-banked, 3/8-mile oval for Rice, who finished 12th in the first semifeature after developing a flat tire while running sixth. He had to run a B-main on Saturday and start from the outside of the 100-lapper’s next-to-last row, but the extra track time, plus some extra studying, proved helpful.
“I got to watch the (replays of the) features Friday night and I’m like, ‘Man, I feel like I’m just driving this place wrong,’ ” Rice said. “Then I feel like I picked up a lot today, and hell, about won the (SOB).”
In a race that was inundated with flat tires — apparently exacerbated by rocks in the surface — Rice was well aware that cutting down a tire could happen at any time. Luck would certainly play a role in avoiding such trouble, but he also attempted to heighten his chances of going the distance by not taking too many unnecessary risks.
Rice made his way forward slowly but surely, benefitting from the many flat tires on cars ahead of him that gave him free spots but also making well-timed passes. He cracked the top-10 on lap 28, then found himself sitting fourth for a lap-45 restart when Devin Moran relinquished a top-five position to change a tire. With race-long pacesetter Ricky Thornton Jr. in sight, he picked up the pace.
“I ran the cushion for a while and made up a lot of time doing that, and then I noticed, like, there was another lane of rubber in (turns) one and two up around that top and I think that was how I passed for the lead,” Rice said, referring to his move by Thornton on lap 53. “I was a little bit freer, and I think that helped me once the rubber come (around the halfway point). Then, s---, I could literally go around there half-throttle and just barely turn left and just make a big circle. I’ve never had a car go around racetrack like that thing. It’s really good.”
Rice briefly lost the lead to Thornton on lap 59 following a restart, but he was back in front the next circuit immediately set sail. He built more than a straightaway edge on his closest pursuer by the time a caution flag flew on lap 66, and he did the same after four more restarts through lap 82. His 2-week-old Rocket Chassis was flying on Batesville’s rubber.
“It was weird because, like, it was like the whole racetrack was clean, and then it was like almost the whole racetrack had rubber,” Rice said. “And I found that top rubber line in one and two and that’s how I got to the front, and then after that, like once I tried it again on that restart, Ricky drove back by me and then it was just like burning in around the bottom and everything else was just so dirty you couldn’t do it no more.
“I mean, it was almost impossible to miss (the rubber). Normally you got to get yourself in line with the rubber, but I could almost swing out and just make a big circle. It was literally like the whole racetrack was rubber. Or maybe my car was just that good and I’m not used to being that good.”
When Thornton pitted for a tire change during a lap-74 caution period, Rice became one of just three drivers in the 24-car field who had yet to pit, joining Dale McDowell of Chickamauga, Ga., and Clay Stuckey of Shreveport, La. Conserving whatever rubber he had left became his objective despite the breezy ease in which he drove away on each restart making it appear that he was still pushing his car to the limit.
Rice said he “didn’t realize how big of a lead I actually had” even while seeing signals from his crewman Daniel Clark as well as Rocket Chassis co-owner Mark Richards, who went to the inside of turns three and four and repeatedly held his arms very far apart to indicate Rice’s large advantage and implore him to take it easy.
“These guys kept telling me to slow down, but like, damn, I can’t go any slower,” Rice said. “I’m like, man, if I go any slower, I’m making myself tight, and then I’m having to floor it to turn. I’m like, that can’t be any better than just staying half-throttle and barely turning left.”
At any rate, Rice knew his right-rear tire was running on borrowed time.
“It was basically flat with like 31 to go on a restart,” Rice said. “I noticed it was flat, but I also seen Ricky led it for a while with a right-rear flat, so I was like, man, maybe I can just stay out here. I guess once we’d get back going it would air back up a little.
“And hell, I was more worried about the right-front (tire) than I was the right-rear because I was trying to be just so soft on the right rear that I was making myself tight.”
Rice’s demise came on lap 89 when he slowed off turn four as eventual winner Dan Ebert of Lake Shore, Minn., ducked low to make what would be his winning pass.
“That last restart (on lap 87) went back green and it vibrated the whole time, and then it finally just burst all at once and it was flat,” Rice said. “Just come up short. I feel like I made it last longer than I probably thought it was going to.”
There was virtually no tread left on Rice’s right-rear tire, so it was clearly wear, rather than an errant rock, that ended his hopes. He just wasn’t quite able to go 100 circuits on his right-rear like runner-up McDowell and fourth-place Stuckey did.
It would have been an incredible accomplishment on multiple levels for Rice. He would have become the first driver since Jonathan Davenport in 2022 to win the North-South 100 and Topless 100 in consecutive weeks, and perhaps most notably would have given Rice a victory on an unfamiliar track in unfamiliar conditions.
“That would’ve been my first race I think I ever won in rubber, so that would have been a helluva start,” Rice said. “I won one at Atomic (Speedway in Alma, Ohio) one night, but it was just (turns) three-and-four rubber, it wasn’t locked-down rubber like this.
“That was gonna be awesome to back Florence up, especially here, because this isn’t like Florence,” he continued. “I mean, you got to get down on racetrack and make yourself momentum. I haven’t had a car that can do that in a long time. Now I’m like, ‘Holy s---, like we might be able to win some races.’ ”
Rice departed Batesville with his crew of Clark, Keir “Big Snack” Hoover and Zach Frields feeling real good about himself and his future. He plans to head north for the Tuesday-Wednesday FloRacing Night in America doubleheader at Iowa’s Marshalltown Speedway and Mason City Motor Speedway and then return to more familiar locales for weekend Northern Allstars Late Model Series shows at Circle City Raceway in Indianapolis, Ind., and Brownstown (Ind.) Speedway.
“I feel like it makes sense (to run the Indiana twinbill) with the Jackson (100) coming up (at Brownstown on the Lucas Oil Series next month), and then obviously Circle City, I think we’ll go back there next year (with the national tour),” Rice said. “So I think it makes more sense for us because our notebook’s kind of started over running a Rocket now.”
A second Rocket Chassis will soon join Rice’s JRR Motorsports stable with his team scheduled to visit Rocket’s headquarters in Shinnston, W.Va., on Aug. 24 to assemble a new car. Then he’ll move on to Port Royal (Pa.) Speedway on Aug. 28-29 for Lucas Oil’s $50,000-to-win Rumble by the River.
“It’ll be No. 18 on the year for new tracks for me,” Rice said of Port Royal, offering a smile to wash away the sting of a Topless 100 near-miss.
