Ricky Thornton Jr. picked up right where he left off.

The defending Firecracker 100 champion and current Lucas Oil Dirt Late Model Series points leader led flag to flag to claim one of the Twin 25-lap preliminary races Thursday night at Lernerville Speedway in Buffalo Township.

Jonathan Davenport won the second preliminary feature.

Thornton, a Martinsville, Ind. resident, will look to become the first driver to win the Saturday 100-lap finale this weekend. He also won a prelim last year.

“The track was super technical,” Thornton said. “It felt like the cushion was over the top on both ends of the track, so you’d get tight and not turn and then go, but after the first yellow flag I decided to commit to the top and it worked out.”

Thornton started on the pole and never relinquished the lead, but had to fend off challenges from Hudson O’Neal, Devin Moran and Mike Marlar.

O’Neal was the first to try Thornton, but ended up slipping back through the field and finished sixth. Moran stalked Thornton for most of the race, but ended up having a mechanical issue with three laps to go and slowed to bring out the caution.

That set up a late restart with Marlar behind Thornton.

Thornton got a great jump and pulled away. Marlar settled for second, Garret Alberson was third and current Lernerville points leader and Sarver native Michael Norris finished fourth.

Davenport won a wild second feature over Pennsylvania natives Chub Frank and Drake Troutman.

There were five cautions in the first nine laps, including red flag when Kyle Lukon’s car went up in flames.

“There were a lot of (cautions) tonight and there were some big ones, so I hope everyone was all right,” Davenport said. “We weren’t as good after we got hit in the left rear on the third restart, so I don’t know if we broke a shock or something, so we’ll have to check that out.”

After lap 9 the race finally got in a rhythm and Gregg Satterlee charged from fifth to second, but slowed with an issue with five laps to go.

Denny Fenton spun to bring out another caution with three laps to go, but Davenport negotiated both late race restarts well.

Frank, who was seeking his first Lernerville win in 12 years, settled for second.

“I needed a little more on the bottom,” said Frank, a Bear Lake native. “(Davenport) was on the top and it was treacherous. I tried it up there and I didn’t like it. I flipped a car last week and didn’t want to flip again tonight. I love this track. I’ve been here for all 18 of these (Firecracker 100’s) and I love the fans down here.”

There were 53 super late models in attendance.

Mason Ziegler set a fast time in Group A and fastest overall at 15.182. Jonathan Davenport was fastest in Group B with a time of 15.193.

Group A heat winners were Thornton, Alberson and O’Neal. Davenport, Daulton Wilson and Carson Ferguson won Group B heat races.

Two cars rolled over in the heats.

Joe Petyak took a wild ride off the back stretch in the first heat and Randy Wyant hit the berm on the bottom of turn three and went into a violent flip before coming to rest in turn four in heat five. Both drivers walked away from their accident.

Lernerville regulars swept the consolation races.

Sarver native Levi Yetter took the Group A B-Main and Logan Zarin of Moon Township won the B-Main in Group B.

Brock Pinkerous, a 14-year-old driver, was the fastest of the 53 Rush crate late models on hand for the weekend for the Bill Emig Memorial. The crate cars will run heat races on Friday.

Due to the excessive heat, racing action was delayed one hour. That will be the case again Friday with hot laps beginning at 7 p.m.

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