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Mod tour night brings top drivers to the Estevan Motor Speedway

The annual stop for the Dakota Classic Modified Tour at the Estevan Motor Speedway wound up being a night to remember for Ricky Thornton Jr.
Speedway pic
Kody Scholpp (02) leads modified drivers coming out of Turn 4 at the Estevan Motor Speedway Monday night. Scholpp finished sixth in the feature and was the top local driver.

The annual stop for the Dakota Classic Modified Tour at the Estevan Motor Speedway wound up being a night to remember for Ricky Thornton Jr.

Thornton, who hails from Adel, Iowa, won both the stock car and the modified features at the track on Monday night. It’s a rare combination for someone to pull off the feat, since both classes are on tours that have attracted top-notch drivers.

“We all come to win,” said Thornton. “We were really good there in the stock car, and I wasn’t quite sure if we were quite good enough in the modified,” he said.

In the modified feature, Thornton won his qualifying heat and started from the inside of the second row in the 29-car race.

Local favourite Kody Scholpp dominated the early stages of the 30-lap feature, as he moved into the lead n the fourth lap to the delight of the crowd. He continued to lead after an early caution, but Thornton caught him on Lap. No. 12, and after a duel between the two drivers for a few laps, Thornton took top spot for good. Scholpp provided the only real challenge. 

“Kody jumped out on us, and then we got to reel him back because of that restart, and kind of moved around. I think that helped a lot to be able to move around and try where there wasn’t a line, and then I just found a line I liked and went from there.”

He’s not sure if he would have been able to catch Scholpp if the race would have been caution-free.

“The track changed a lot under the (early) yellow. It dried out a lot. So it made the lines all over instead of right through the middle. I think that helped me out a lot. He was really good whenever there was a little bit of traction. He could turn in better than I could.”

A caution with five laps to go brought the field together. Thornton led the other drivers slowly coming out of Turn 4 on the restart, which he said gave him an advantage.

Scholpp dropped back to sixth after the restart and was the top local driver.

Tom Berry Jr., who started on the pole, finished second. Casey Arneson was third and Jeff Taylor was fourth.

One other local driver, Estevan’s Tyson Turnbull, finished in the top 10. He was eighth.

In the stock car class, Thornton had to work his way up from the third row, after he finished second in his qualifying heat. But he found his way into the lead midway through the feature.

Austin Daae, who started from the pole position, proved to be the only legitimate challenger that Thornton had. But Thornton held Daae off, and won the feature by less than a second.

Dalton Flory came in third. Jeremy Swanson of Estevan (fifth) and Devon Gonas of Midale (seventh) were the other drivers in the top 10.

“They prepped the track just before the last chance for the modified guys, and I knew it was going to be muddier on the top for a while, so I wasn’t as good as they were on the top, so I started just moving to the bottom and working this line in, and then finally it came in.

“I think because I was the first one to get it worked in, I slowly picked my way to the front, and everyone moved down after that.”

Thornton said the track was in really good shape, and he was glad they were able to race Monday night. A brief thunderstorm rolled through the Estevan area on Monday afternoon.

But the race program started just a few minutes late.

“The track was smooth. It got pretty slick there in the feature, but you could run the top, bottom in traffic or anywhere I needed.”

Thornton said he loves the competition offered by the tour. He had a great start to the tour in both divisions, but those great starts can be wiped out by missing the feature for a night.

His focus for the tour remained on winning races, rather than trying to win the points titles in both division.

A total of 53 modified drivers and 21 stock car drivers were at the speedway Monday night. The stock cars all advanced to the A final, but due to the number of modified drivers, almost half of the entrants didn’t make the A feature.

The winners of the six modified qualifiers advanced directly to the feature, along with 10 other top finishers. The remaining 37 drivers had a second chance to advance through B mains, with six drivers from each of those two races moving on to the final race.

There was one last opportunity to qualify through a last chance race, which was won by Estevan’s Ed Turnbull.

There wasn’t a caution flag during the night until late in the last-chance qualifier.

The next program at the speedway will July 20 and 21.