Pittsburgh Pennsylvania Motor Speedway
Lucas Oil title questions, storylines leaving PPMS
By Kyle McFadden
DirtonDirt staff reporter
Devin Moran at PPMS. (heathlawsonphotos.com)
IMPERIAL, Pa. (Oct. 4) — Is everything aligning for Devin Moran to capture his first Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series championship?
Will Ricky Thornton Jr. see his second title in three years slip away because of misfortune in the Big River Steel Chase for the Championship? | RaceWire
What’s the likelihood of Jonathan Davenport coming from 115 points behind in the playoff finale for his fourth Lucas Oil title?
Those are among questions and storylines Saturday’s Pittsburgher 100 produced departing Pittsburgh Pennsylvania Motor Speedway as the Lucas Oil title race heads toward its conclusion Oct. 17-18 at Eldora Speedway in Rossburg, Ohio, for the Dirt Track World Championship.
And that’s not all the elements that intensify this year’s DTWC at the legendary half-mile oval owned by Tony Stewart.
“Any time you go to Eldora, you’re gonna have to worry about (Nick) Hoffman, you’re gonna have to worry about (Bobby) Pierce, you have to worry about Dale (McDowell). There’s so many other obstacles at Eldora,” said the 34-year-old Thornton, who’s 15 points behind Moran entering Lucas Oil’s title-deciding race. “I’m not saying the guys we run with aren’t just as good as we are, but they’ll be 25 really good cars instead of 10 good cars.”
At this point, besides Hudson O’Neal mathematically falling out of the title race at 365 points behind, virtually anything can happen at the DTWC. For starters, Jonathan Davenport’s clearest path to the title is earning 10 bonus points for fast time, another 200 for winning the DTWC — then hoping that Moran finishes 17th or worse and that Thornton finishes 15th or worse.
Moran vs. Thornton, meanwhile, is more nuanced and so closely contested that Thornton still controls his own destiny. For example, if Thornton sets fast time in either group and wins the 100-lap DWTC, he’ll claim his second consecutive series title.
“Fifteen points is definitely not enough. Ricky came in 80 ahead of us and now he’s 15 behind,” the 31-year-old Moran said. “If I was max pointed out, I would be happy. Until then, you never know what’s going to happen. The Dirt Track has a mind of its own. We’ll go there guns a-blazing, and we’ll see what we can do.”
Providing Thornton some comfort is that Moran’s never won an Eldora 100-lapper and has only finished inside the top-five of Big E crown jewels five times in 23 feature starts. Two of those top-fives, however, have come in Eldora’s DTWCs each of the last two seasons.
Time trials, just like for the first four playoff races, will be paramount. Moran’s made up 30 points on Thornton via qualifying alone as the Dresden, Ohio, driver’s notched three quick times in four time trial attempts. Thornton, meanwhile, qualified third in Group A on Saturday, second in Group B on Friday (missing quick time by 0.022 seconds), third in Group B on Sept. 27 at Brownstown (Ind.) Speedway and third in Group B on Sept. 26 at Brownstown.
“Hopefully we’ll go out and set quick time. I went out earlier (Saturday) and just didn’t do a good enough job … that’s cost us already 20-30 points to these guys,” Thornton said. "We’d been really good all year, and whenever we’re bad, we’re second or third or fourth. Hopefully we can go quick time, get ourselves 10 points, and hopefully just race really good at Eldora.”
While Thornton outran Moran to capture Sept. 27’s Jackson 100 at Brownstown, Moran’s consistency has topped his playoff foes. Moran was there to inherit Friday’s victory when Thornton blew a tire on lap 15 of 30 — a 105-point swing after Thornton rallied back to ninth.
In finishing second Saturday, Thornton maintained a seven-second advantage over the fifth-running Moran until the lap-59 caution. Up to that caution, Thornton’s provisional lead had been 20 points over Moran. But like on Friday, circumstances again worked in Moran’s favor as the Double Down Motorsports driver leveraged a pair of aggressive restarts to power from fifth to third while Thornton slipped from second to fourth;
“Yeah, just glad we salvaged that. I felt like we were struggling and really bad at the start of the race, then found that high line,” Moran said. “Pittsburgh just did an awesome job. … I really felt like if we could get to lapped traffic, Brandon Overton showed me that top line. My car was so bad down off the top, I had to commit myself up to it.
“At the same time, I had to be too committed to not get a flat (tire). You saw Brandon do (that) and obviously Ricky (Friday) night. It was definitely a fine line of going really hard, but at the same time, not causing any problems or troubles.”
Unlike Moran, Thornton didn’t want to see the pair of cautions on laps 59 for Brandon Overton’s flat tire and 63 for debris.
“Really don’t know what the yellow was for (on lap 63), they were saying debris or something, but I don’t know — I never saw it,” Thornton said. “Obviously, we were really good. We were second at that point. I think we had four-and-a-half seconds on Max (Blair). I feel like, unless I did something catastrophic, we were going to run second. It just, overall, a good weekend.”
Restarts were seemingly a hindrance for Thornton Saturday at PPMS. Starting second on the outside front row of his heat race, he quickly got shuffled back to fourth before working his way back to the runner-up spot.
On the feature’s first restart on lap 10, Thornton managed to take second from Moran, settling into that spot until the lap-59 caution. The second restart on lap 59 put Thornton in a precarious position.
“The one with 12 to go, when I was next to Max, I knew he was going to get a good start. I let him go down the front straightaway because he was going to go back to the bottom. I didn’t want to put myself in a bad spot,” Thornton said. “I was able to stay third after that. Then Devin slid me, and I was able to get back by him, and got a way a little bit.”
But shortly after the final restart on lap 63, Moran dispatched Thornton with an aggressive move to the No. 20rt’s inside entering turn one.
“We had that last yellow, and I just didn’t do a good enough job getting myself clear and getting myself a gap,” Thornton said. “I almost ran up to Max a little bit too much in three and four, so I hung real bad. That let Devin slide me. I probably could’ve slid him back in three and four, but I was probably going to wreck him.
“So I did the smart thing and made sure I left him a lane. He drove back around me. I don’t know, I feel like we had a good car. Just needed to be a little better.”
With half of his 18 victories this year on half-miles, Thornton’s Koehler Motorsports team carried high expectations into Pittsburgher weekend. But unlike other bigger, sweeping tracks on the circuit that Thornton’s drummed up plenty of success at this year like Port Royal (Pa.) Speedway and Eldora, “our typical stuff we run on half-miles, you can’t run here because you’ll never be able to steer.”
Knowing that, it forced Thornton and co. "to change it up a little bit” over the weekend at PPMS, which threw his race off kilter.
“I almost steered too good all weekend. Last year, that’s where I really struggled here; I just couldn’t steer enough,” Thornton said. “Just sucks to lose the points the lead. We’ll go to Eldora. Luckily our Eldora stuff is really good. We were really good at the Dream and had a right-front failure, and we were really good at the World. Hopefully we can go there and get us a win.”
Thornton added that “it’s the fine line between being able to steer, not steer, and have traction.” That kind of balance is what’s separated Thornton and his Koehler Motorsports from the rest, just not at PPMS.
“Like I said, last year here I couldn’t steer like I needed to, especially once it got really slick, where tonight I could steer wherever I wanted to and didn’t have the traction I needed,” Thornton said. “It’s a fine line, like I said. We’ve been battling it all weekend.”
Thornton is encouraged he’s still just as much of the favorite to capture his second Lucas Oil title at 15 points behind than he was at 80 points ahead of Moran entering Pittsburgher weekend. He’ll need more to go his way, but based off his convincing World 100 victory last month, Thornton and Co. shouldn’t have to stray too far finding their ideal package at the DTWC.
“With us racing there not long ago, we haven’t learned a whole lot of different stuff,” Thornton said. “Usually when you go back to a place, you have a completely different package. We’ll probably run this car again just because it’s been so good. We’ll just have to wait and see.”
