Eldora Speedway
Notes: RTJ turns trouble into opportunity at Big E
Ricky Thornton Jr. races Brandon Sheppard. (Zach Yost)
ROSSBURG, Ohio (Sept. 11) — Ricky Thornton Jr. entered Friday’s World 100 preliminary program ranked 64th in points after a flat tire during Thursday’s Shootout ripped out a brake line and damaged suspension components while he was running 11th and pursuing the eighth and final transfer spot.
After his Koehler Motorsports crew made repairs, the 34-year-old reigning World 100 champion needed an efficient Friday night — and some help from the invert — to climb back into contention. He received both, finishing second to Brandon Sheppard in the semifeature before Sheppard, the event’s high-point driver, spun a six on the Wheel of Misfortune.
Thornton’s recovery lifted him to 35th in the final prelim standings, nine points ahead of 37th-place Clay Stuckey. That distinction became especially important because it places Thornton on the pole of Saturday’s fifth heat alongside five-time World 100 winner Jonathan Davenport.
“We needed a good night,” Thornton said. “I was actually kind of worried because I didn’t qualify as well as I was hoping. I was hoping we’d be around sixth or seventh, and we ended up 12th.”
Thornton’s qualifying effort was nevertheless an improvement from his 26th-place performance Thursday. He advanced from third to second in Friday’s Shootout, then charged from sixth to second in the 25-lap semifeature.
The Chandler, Ariz., driver led twice for five circuits — laps 11-14 and 16 — during a riveting back-and-forth battle with Sheppard. Thornton briefly regained command after Sheppard’s first pass, but Sheppard moved ahead for good on lap 17 and pulled away to win by 1.3 seconds.
“On the bright side, we were good enough to race with Sheppard, pass cars and, really, I wasn’t as bad in dirty air as you typically are here,” Thornton said. “Hopefully, what we learned can carry over.”
With Chris Madden and Sam Seawright directly behind him and Jason Feger and Tyler Erb occupying the third row, Thornton finds himself in arguably the toughest heat of the night. Only the top three finishers transfer to the 100-lap, $100,000-to-win finale, placing added importance on capitalizing from the pole.
“The heat race will be tough,” Thornton said. “We just have to get a good start and get out front. Even if you don’t win, it’s not the end of the world. At least you want to run second and put yourself around 11th starting the feature.”
Thornton knows how quickly a favorable heat result can transform an otherwise unremarkable World 100 weekend. He ranked 12th after last year’s prelims and started fifth in his heat following another six-car invert. Despite prelim finishes of eighth and 11th, he won his heat, earned the feature pole and essentially drove away to capture his first World 100.
Another heat victory Saturday would put Thornton on the outside front row, giving him another opportunity to grab ahold of clean air early and control the race from the outset.
“Winning one last year definitely gives you confidence,” Thornton said. “The heat race really sets up everything. If you screw up and run fifth or sixth, you might as well pretty much call your night done. There are so many good cars here that it’ll be tough to make the show from the third or fourth row of a B-main.” — Kyle McFadden
Could this be the year?
Chris Madden won’t let himself get too eager and excited about his chances in Saturday’s World 100. He’s experienced far too many heartbreaks in Eldora crown jewels to expect anything more than another.
But the 51-year-old standout from Gray Court, S.C., allowed himself to crack a smile while discussing his fourth-place finish in Friday’s second 25-lap semifeature. His Infinity Chassis house car felt “pretty good,” and it sent him to bed with a quiet confidence that maybe, just maybe, after more than three dozen winless major event feature starts at Eldora — including 18 in the World 100 — he might finally be able to break through.
“We’re pretty balanced in that condition,” Madden said of Friday’s slick track surface. “I think if we just get in this feature we’ll be fine. If we can dial that up tomorrow, I feel like we have a shot at winning this thing.”
In Friday’s semifeature, Madden looked like the driver who’s run up front so many times in Eldora’s long-distance affairs, smoothly chugging through the turns and off the corners with his familiar No. 44. He wouldn’t go so far to say he was matching the feel he had in some of his best runs at the track — like the 2022 Eldora Million when he charged from the rear to finish second, the rain-delayed ’22 Dream when he seemed to have the race in hand until a coil wire fell off late and caused him to settle for one of his five career runner-up finishes in the track’s crown jewels — but he’s close.
“Just a little bit and I’ll be right there,” said Madden, whose career-best World 100 finish is third, in ’22. “I got a good idea of what to do. I need a little more grip in just a certain spot on the racetrack. Just a little bit.”
Madden has a pretty tough heat-race draw, however, starting third in Heat 5 with former World 100 winners Ricky Thornton Jr. and Jonathan Davenport sharing the front row ahead of him. — Kevin Kovac
Remembering 9/11
Freddie Carpenter’s wife, Jima, has been pushing the Parkersburg, W.Va., driver to unload his own Kryptonite Chassis with a 9/11-themed graphics scheme for many years. Freddie has been putting it on the backburner, feeling the timing wasn’t right.
This year’s World 100 weekend at Eldora Speedway provided the perfect opportunity as the country remembered the 25th anniversary of the attacks on Friday.
“I was like, ‘It’s a good time to do it.’ I just gave her free rein,” Carpenter said of Jima, who created the design. “I told her, ‘Do whatever you want to do.’ I said, ‘I just want everything trimmed in gold.’ And that’s what she came up with.”
Carpenter’s car, situated in the upper pit area, received much praise online and in-person. It features scenes from the World Trade Center in New York City, the Pentagon in Washington D.C., and a mural of a crashed United Flight 93 in Shanksville, Pa., on its doors and quarter-panels. Names of the 2,977 victims are listed on the rear deck panels.
Jima was motivated to create the design after personally visiting New York City shortly after the attack and visiting the 9/11 Memorial and Museum in Lower Manhattan several times since.
“Every time I go to the Memorial, and every time I take pictures, I cry, especially when you see the names of the people whose lives were lost,” Jima said. “And in parentheses beside their name, it says ‘unborn child.’ Like, they never got to see their loved ones. They never got to meet that child that they had longed to have. I thought it was important to keep that memorialized so that people don’t forget those lives that were lost and the people who answered the call, ran towards the danger, instead of running away from it … those people deserved to be recognized for what they did.”
Carpenter had the honor of circling the track with his car carrying two American flags during Friday’s national anthem. — Bryan Ault
