Port Royal Speedway
After squabble, Madden sets his eyes on Eldora
By Kevin Kovac
DirtonDirt senior writer
Chris Madden (44) and Ricky Thornton Jr. (20rt) battle. (heathlawsonphotos.com)
PORT ROYAL, Pa. (Aug. 23) — Chris Madden wasn’t happy, but he wasn’t irate as many observers thought he might be. A bit perturbed, perhaps.
After coming out on the short end of a fierce, slider-trading battle for the lead with Ricky Thornton Jr. in Saturday’s 50-lap Rumble by the River finale at Port Royal Speedway, Madden seemed to chalk up the contact with his younger rival to the magnitude of the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series-sanctioned event.
“It was 50-grand to win,” Madden matter-of-factly said while leaning on a counter in his team’s trailer following his runner-up finish to Thornton in the hard-fought feature.
Madden, 50, of Gray Court, S.C., would have preferred to be celebrating his first $50,000 triumph since June 2022’s Mountain Moonshine Classic at Smoky Mountain Speedway in Maryville, Tenn., but he didn’t view it as a downright heartbreaking defeat. He took his best shot at the big prize and it just wasn’t enough.
As Madden pointed out, Thornton, the 34-year-old defending Lucas Oil Series champion from Chandler, Ariz., went elbows-up to seize the race. Sure, Madden didn’t like the hit to his car’s left-rear corner that he absorbed from Thornton when he pulled a lap-38 restart slider to grab the lead, but he couldn’t deny that Thornton found a way to rally and regain command on lap 46.
“He just gets up there and I lets ‘er …” Madden said, searching for the right words to describe Thornton’s relentless charge around the extreme outside of the half-mile oval that keyed his victory. “I don't know. He rides up on top of the cushion. He’s young and very good at what he does there on the top side.”
Madden readily admitted that the cushion-dancing, fence-rubbing racing Thornton employed isn’t really in his playbook. With a curb sitting there near the guardrail, Madden knew Thornton would attack it.
“Those (younger) guys were raised doing that kind of stuff, and it’s a little different,” Madden said. “And it takes a different driving style to go do that. We don’t set our car up to do it and I don’t set myself up to do it. You know, when a cushion gets that tall, it gets up against the fence, I don’t know, I ain’t never figured out anything that fits me that I can get up there and do it.
“I could run three-quarters of the way up the track there and had speed. I mean, he just laid it in that dirt pile. You could make a lot of speed with it. He’s good at setting his car up to be able to do that and he’s good at doing it, so he was able to get up there and make some speed.
“It is what it is, you know?” he added. “Without the dirt pile laid up against the guardrail, we’d have enough to get it done. I mean, I knew that was the only way they were going to get me. They wasn’t gonna beat me in (lower on) the racetrack. We had a good hot rod.”
Madden’s machine — a Longhorn Chassis fielded by fellow racer Kale Green of Pelion, S.C. — was indeed fast. He dominated most of the race’s first half from the outside pole, and, after losing the lead to Thornton on lap 24, he fought back to regain it on lap 38.
It was Madden’s restart pass that raised Thornton’s agitation level — not to mention gave him extra incentive to driver harder in pursuit of victory. Madden dived underneath Thornton entering turn one and slid ahead between the corners, but Thornton hit Madden’s left-rear quarterpanel — bending it in the process — in turn two and lost enough momentum to fall to third behind Devin Moran of Dresden, Ohio.
Thornton said later he “didn’t feel like it was the right move” for Madden to make “at that point” in the race. “I had a better car than he did,” Thornton said. “It was almost desperation-mode (by Madden) at that point.”
Madden saw the situation differently. He had an opportunity on the restart and he took it.
“He couldn’t restart real well,” Madden said of Thornton. “I knew it. The restart before that (on lap 33) I had a shot, but I wasn’t quite as far up beside him (entering turn one) as I was that second time.
“But that second time, I had him cleared in the middle of the corner. I drove on, you know, all the way to the top of the turn two exit, the same way he passed me in three and four when he passed me the initial time (on lap 24) — he drove in on the bottom and drove all the way to the fence leaving four, you know, and I lifted and turned back left and passed him back and then I left him a lane down there (in turns one and two) on the top.”
Madden remarked that he didn’t get loose when Thornton contacted the left-rear of his car off turn two, but he felt the bump.
“He had a big run, big steam running up there,” Madden said. “I guess he had a lot of speed and didn’t think that I was going to leave the top exiting, and he didn’t … or I guess he was gonna turn left. I don’t know. I ain’t got no eyes in the back of my head. I don’t know what he did. All I know is I had him cleared when I got to the center of the corner and I kept going.”
A caution flag flew on lap 42, setting up the final sprint to the finish with Moran and Thornton restarting behind Madden. The slowdown also provided Thornton a chance to pull up alongside Madden in turn one and express displeasure with the restart slider.
“Yeah, he told me I was his best friend,” Madden said with a sly laugh when asked about Thornton’s caution-period hand signals. “You know, typical. Very professional.”
Nine more laps proved to be too many for Madden, who couldn’t hold off Thornton’s Koehler Motorsports Longhorn Chassis. Thornton disposed of Moran for second on lap 43 and slid Madden for the lead rounding turns three and four on lap 46.
“I knew I wasn’t home free. I knew somebody was going to be railing that top,” Madden said. “Now, if there would have been, you know, five or six laps left, then I feel like my tires would have stayed cool enough, long enough, I would’ve been able to carry enough speed in the center of the track to maintain (the lead).”
Madden said the latest Hoosier tires “fall off” once they heat up, so “what it takes to make speed” is to “just run up there on the top wide-open.” Thornton did just that to sweep past Madden and complete a $60,000 sweep of the weekend after also capturing Friday’s 40-lap preliminary feature.
Considering the history between Madden and Thornton — Madden spent the final three months of the 2024 season as Thornton’s Koehler Motorsports crew chief and bad feelings after the stretch resulted in the pair going to face-to-face in victory lane following their 1-2 finish in November’s World Finals finale at The Dirt Track at Charlotte — it seemed another testy round might be coming during Port Royal’s postrace ceremonies. Lucas Oil Series director Rick Schwallie even stuck his head in Madden’s window when Madden pulled up to victory lane to gently remind him to keep his interview comments clean.
This time, though, there were no off-color words from Madden, nor any confrontation with Thornton. While Moran, who finished third, joked with the pair about the testy moment upon arriving for the top-three photo (“I said, ‘Well, this is gonna be awkward’ ”), they didn’t appear to make any eye contact or shake hands when Madden walked up to stand on the podium alongside Thornton but they did exchange a couple quick words.
“I totally done a good job. I’m professional,” Madden said of his interaction with Thornton. “I said, ‘Good job.’ And, I mean, he said the same thing. He said, ‘You know, I cooled down. You know, it was $50,000-to-win.’
“And it is $50,000 win out there. So I’m out there doing the same thing he is.”
In fact, when Madden asked if he thought Thornton would have tossed a similar slider if positions were reversed, he immediately responded in animated fashion.
“Absolutely he would have!” Madden said. “Without a doubt. There’s no question.”
Madden was also able to consider the positive side of his $20,000 runner-up finish, which is that it shows he’s running well with the World 100 looming Sept. 4-6 at Eldora Speedway in Rossburg, Ohio. He’s planning to sit out competition over Labor Day weekend to prep Green’s car for the big event, a race that he feels as confident about as he ever as despite running a limited schedule this season after announcing his retirement from full-time racing last year.
Port Royal marked his second straight bridesmaid run in a big-money race following Aug. 16’s Topless 100 at Batesville Motor Speedway in Locust Grove, Ark. He also finished fifth in Aug. 2’s USA Nationals at Cedar Lake Speedway in New Richmond, Wis., and overall has two victories among seven top-five finishes in 11 starts since connecting with Green two months ago.
“It’s going good unless we screw it up,” Madden said. “Right now we’re doing a good job as a team, and hopefully we can keep it going. I know the way my race car is right now, we got a very good shot at (the World 100). As long as we get all of our I’s dotted and our T’s crossed at home and get everything done and get prepared for it the way you have to get prepared … some people don't understand that, you know, the preparation for that race is part of the win. Hopefully we can manage that and get everything right.”
Winning a crown jewel at Eldora, of course, is the Holy Grail for Madden. The famed track’s majors have eluded the accomplished driver for over two decades. He entered the Dream for the first time in 2003 and has run every World 100 since ’06; including 2022’s Eldora Million (he finished second in that race after failing to overtake Jonathan Davenport in a two-lap sprint to the finish), he’s attempted 42 Eldora crown jewels and started the finale 36 times without a victory. He’s finished second in the Dream on three occasions (second 2021 race, ’22 and ’23) and as high as third in the World 100 (’22).
So many misfortunes or quirks of fate have befallen Madden at Eldora that he remarked that he “don't even say, ‘What else?’ anymore because I don't think there is nothing else that can happen.” So might the stars finally be ready to align for him to win a major there?
Madden thinks so. He even recommended that gamblers put money on him.
“A hundred percent,” he said. “As long as the Lord don’t have nothing different planned for me.”
Plus, Madden noted that he would gladly give up a win in Port Royal’s feature for a World 100 triumph.
“Would I trade it? Absolutely, 100 percent,” he said with a gleam in his eye.
