Photo Credit - Ryan Roberts Photography
Bobby Pierce seemed to be on his way to another win at Eldora Speedway until lap 38 when his motor lost power. Ricky Thornton Jr. held off Hudson O'Neal and pole sitter Josh Rice for the $25,000 payday. It was later discovered it was a costly mistake by the Pierce crew that cost not only the victory but a motor as well. They accidentaly left the cap on the oil cooler that teams will use to warm up the oil then removing it before going out on the track.
The new Dream format for this year is they split the field in half instead of all drivers racing three nights. 49 cars would be dwindled down to 24 through 4 heat races and 2 B Mains. Ricky Thornton Jr. would set fast time but Josh Rice would win the first heat race. Carson Ferguson , Kyle Bronson , and Max Blair also collected heat race wins. Dustin Linville and Dennis Erb Jr. took the B Mains. Linville is behind the wheel of the Hatcher Family #6 instead of his familiar d8.
Ricky Thornton Jr. spun the 2 on the invert wheel for the 50 lap feature. Josh Rice and RTJ brought the field to green with Thornton setting the early pace. Pierce got up to 2nd and was reeling in the Lucas Oil point leader setting up another RTJ/Pierce battle for the lead. Pierce would clear RTJ on lap 16 for the race lead and began to pull away until the yellow would wave on lap 18 for Tanner English losing a RR.
When the green replaced the yellow Pierce would start to stretch the lead until lap 38 when his motor expired on him due to the oil cooler cap being left on. That would hand the lead back to RTJ with 15th starter Hudson O'Neal now on the spoiler of the 20RT. Hudson would challenge on the restart but Thornton would hold the lead. Just as they were coming to 2 to go Shannon Babb's RR exploded right in front of the leader RTJ giving O'Neal , Rice , and Madden one more shot to overtake Thornton for the win,
When they went back to green Thornton said he didn't get as good as a restart as before but was still good enough to pick up the prelim night win of The Dream for the second year in a row. It was lucky number 13th win of the year for Thornton Jr and the SSI Motorsports team.
O'Neal says he has to improve his qualifying efforts burying himself in his heat race. He charged through the field in the feature to go from 15th to 2nd. Rice fought power steering issues and was happy to survive and finishing third. Rice would say they discovered a power steering leak as they blew the 10 minute horn to be lined up for the feature.
Tonight the remaining half of the cars that didn't race last night will take to track tonight for 50 laps and a $25,000 payday. If you can't make it to the Big E catch all the action live on FloRacing
Thursday Dream Results
RICKY THORNTON JR.
O'Neal
Rice
Madden
Blair
Clanton
Bronson
Dillard
McCreadie
Overton
Bloomquist
Wilson
Carson Ferguson
English
Erb Jr.
Babb
McIntosh
Joiner
Linville
Blight
Smith
Pierce
Chris Ferguson
Bowersock
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