Ricky Thornton Jr. & Joey Danley steal BIG money at Eagle's High Bank Heist

5/19/2025

Eagle Raceway

Ricky Thornton Jr. & Joey Danley steal BIG money at Eagle's High Bank Heist

By Greg Soukup
Saturday night at Eagle Raceway was one of ‘Biggests’. The biggest fan count of the season showed up for the culmination of the 3-night Malvern Bank High Banks Heist, featuring the Lucas Oil Late Model Series with the Nebraska Septic IMCA Sprints as the undercard.
The Late Models were racing for a total purse of $150,000 which is the biggest ever paid out for a single night for the class at Eagle with the A Feature winner taking home $50,000. The sprints competed for the biggest top prize outside of the IMCA Racesaver Nationals, thanks to a late sponsor contribution that raised the top prize to $3,000 with $650 just to start the A.
It wasn’t a biggest, but fastest as Garrett Ableson beat his best time at the track last year of 13.292 seconds with a new track record of 13.041 seconds to kick off the racing action with the Late Models.
In the B Feature for the Nebraska Septic IMCA Racesaver Sprints Nate Weiler rolled the 4W in turns 1 and 2 after getting too hard into the first corner. He wasn’t seriously injured but his night was done.
The first A Main was for the IMCA Racesaver Sprint Cars. For those at home and visitors new to Eagle Raceway, they got to see the only 3-wide start for sprints outside of the yearly IMCA Racesaver Nationals which is held every Memorial Day weekend at Eagle. If you’ve never witnessed it, you really need to come and see us that weekend because it’s a sight to see!! Billy Alley started outside of row 1 and put the #11 out front of lap 1 of the 30 lapper with Tyler Drueke second in the 12, Joey Danley’s #14 third and John Klabunde fourth in the 77X. Klabunde jumped up to third on lap 3 and passed Drueke for second 2 laps later. Klabunde kept his cool, following Alley until lap 18 when he took over the top spot but got caught behind a lap car, handing the lead back to Alley as Danley passed Drueke when Drueke wheel hopped the 1B of Brandon Horton. Drueke gathered it back up and held onto fourth place. Danley went around Klabunde with 6 to go to grab second. Alley made contact with the 45H of Mike Boston in turns 1 and 2 the next time around, spun and did a slow roll to bring out the red flag. Trevor Grossenbacher stopped high in 1 and 2 with a huge amount of steam coming from the front of the car and the 35’s night was also over as he and Alley headed to the pits. That made your top 4 Danley, Klabunde, Drueke and the 5 of Stu Snyder. 1 lap after the restart Ty Leger’s #35L got loose in front of Brandon Bosma’s 23, both spun and Gene Ackland had nowhere to go, spunk and ended up flipping destroying his sprint. He was uninjured. The final change in the top 4 came with 2 circuits left when Cole Vanderheiden passed Snyder to move up to fourth. Danley won with Klabunde second Drueke third and Vanderheiden fourth.
I congratulated Joey on his $3,000 payday and he said “Honestly, we weren’t planning on coming here tonight, but they announced the extra money this morning and that’s why we came. About 11 o’clock we decided to show up and it really paid off. It’s a good thing that I started out front because we were not very good at the beginning of the race and I think I fell back to fourth. From the middle of the race on the car started to come in to me and the top came in. We moved up there and just started tracking them down”. Joey’s sponsors include Empire Fence & Netting (Waverly, NE), Myers Engine Inc. (Ness City, KS) , mySalesman (Waverly, NE), The WAVE (Waverly, NE), Unlimited Sports Solutions (Waverly, NE), Adams Automotive (Lincoln, NE), Automotive Services (Lincoln, NE), High Performance Lubricants (Manteno, IL), Nissen Hardwood Floors (Lincoln, NE) and Onyx Digital Group.
It was time for the finale on the weekend as the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series cars rolled out to battle for their big $50,000 to win 75 lap A Feature. Ricky Thornton Jr. took off from outside the front row to grab the lead in the 20RT with Garett Alberson’s 58, the 49 of Jonathan Davenport and Brandon Sheppard’s 1 close behind. Davenport passed Alberson for second on lap 2. Lap 4 saw the yellow flag fly when Dylan Thornton’s 38T smacked the wall coming out of turn 4 and head to the pits but return to the race. Alberson regained the runner up spot on the restart but lost it back to Davenport 2 laps later. Tyler Bruening cracked the top 4 on lap 8 in the 16 moved up to third on lap 7. Bruening passed Alberson for fourth on lap 16. Devin Moran also passed Alberson, this time on lap 18 to put the 99 into fourth place and moved past Bruening for third place on lap 24. Dylan Sillman spun the 35D out at the bottom of turn 2 on lap 36 and the yellow lights were lit in the corners. 1 lap after the restart Davenport got past Thornton Jr. for the lead but would only hold it for 1 lap as Thornton Jr. snatched it back the next time around. Bruening moved back up to fourth on lap 42. Lap 45 saw the 18D of Daulton Wilson slow with right rear damage and head to the pits after bringing out the caution. They yellow flag was displayed again on lap 48 for debris on the track. Moran advanced to second on the restart as Brandon Overton passed Bruening to put the #76 into fourth. Debris on the track on lap 65 slowed the action once again. The final change in the top 4 came on the restart as Bruening regained fourth. Thornton Jr. was not to be headed from there to the checkers winning by 1.8 seconds.
Thornton Jr.’s run reminded me of the way it used to be at Eagle Raceway with the cushion up against the Armco outside of turns 1 and 2 as well as 3 and 4. You could hear the sprint cars push bumpers ticking off of the walls there and Thornton Jr. looked the same. He went to the high side and stuck there as the cushion moved ever higher throughout the race. That seemed to be his preferred line all 3 days. It bit him on Friday when he tagged the wall coming out of turn 4 and destroyed the steering rack on his racer and ended his night. That deterred him not one bit as he rode high, wide and handsome to victory.
I mentioned that to him during his interview, to which he replied “I don’t think I’ve run that big of a cushion, up on the wall, honestly it’s probably since the dome that we’ve had one that technical. It was easy to be fast, or it was easy to have your car completely wiped out!! We really didn’t know what kind of track we were going to have with the sprint cars running. We figured it was going to have a big curb and we had it, but you could still race down on the bottom. I thought all weekend that this was the best track prep that we’ve had in a long time. Definitely my hat’s off to the people that do the prep here. It was a really good night for us. We qualified really well, had a good heat race and a great feature and it just worked out for us”. It was obvious that Ricky enjoys coming to America’s Home Track, Eagle Raceway because as he headed to his trailer he yelled to a Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series official “Can we come back here a couple more times next year?”. Hopefully, that can and will happen!!!! Ricky’s sponsors include Longhorn Chassis, Bilstein Shock Absorbers, Clements Racing Engines, Cornett Racing Engines, Knight’s Companies, Coltman Farms Racing, Hoker Trucking LLC, Capital Waste, Ultimate Towing & Recovery, Jones Racing Products, Certified Inspection Service Co., Inc., Varsitee Screenprinting, D and E Outside Services, FK Rod Ends, Shocker Hitch, EMD Wraps, GoSunoco, Dynamic Drivelines, Excel Floor Coverings, Performance Bodies, Swift Springs, Buzze Performance, Dirtcarlift, Impact Racing, Behrent's Performance Warehouse, Ultra Shield Race Products, LLC, Sharp Advantage Safety Products, LLC, Team SRI Motorsports, MPI - Max Papis Innovations, Strange Oval and TireDemon.
Next Saturday we return to the regular season racing as Celerion and Nebraska Septic present the Memorial Day Showdown. All 5 IMCA classes will be competing, including the A1 Stock Cars, Avid Realty Sportmods, Nebraska’s Best Lawn and Landscape Modifieds, Valentino’s Hobby Stocks and Nebraska Septic Sprint Cars.
Grandstands open at 5:15, hot laps kick off at 5:45 with racing at 6:30. Adult front gate admission is $15, youths 6-12 just $5 and children 5 and under free.
Pit gates open at 4:00 wit h pit passes costing $30.
RESULTS:
Dirt Super Late Models 35 Entries
LOLMDS A-Main 75 Laps | 00:29:57.035 1. 20RT-Ricky Thornton Jr[2]; 2. 49-Jonathan Davenport[3]; 3. 99-Devin Moran[8]; 4. 16-Tyler Bruening[5]; 5. 76-Brandon Overton[11]; 6. 71-Hudson O'Neal[23]; 7. 1-Brandon Sheppard[4]; 8. 58-Garrett Alberson[1]; 9. 14S-Co len Winebarger[17]; 10. 40B-Kyle Bronson[9]; 11. 15-Clay Stuckey[16]; 12. 79-Donald McIntosh[15]; 13. 60-Dan Ebert[12]; 14. 18D-Daulton Wilson[21]; 15. 93-Carson Ferguson[6]; 16. 22-Daniel Hilsabeck[10]; 17. 93L-Cory Lawler[22]; 18. 04-Tad Pospisil[13]; 19. 76N-Blair Nothdurft[7]; 20. 35D-Dylan Si lman[14]; 21. 18-Jesse Sobbing[20]; 22. 18C-Chase Junghans[19]; 23. 19M Spencer Hughes[24]; 24. 38T-Dylan Thornton[18]
Fast Shafts B-Main 1 9 Laps | 00:02:10.727 1. 14S-Colen Winebarger[3]; 2. 18C-Chase Junghans[2]; 3. 18D-Daulton Wilson[4]; 4. 07-Ben Sukup[5]; 5. 19M-Spencer Hughes[6]; 6. 28-Sam Mars[1]; 7. 7D-Dusty Leonard[7]; 8. 10-Junior Coover[8]; 9. 6-Clay Harris[10]; 10. (DNS) 8-Dilon McCowan
UNOH B-Main 2 9 Laps | 00:02:14.080 1. 38T-Dylan Thornton[1]; 2. 18-Jesse Sobbing[4]; 3. 93L-Cory Lawler[3]; 4. 71-Hudson O'Neal[7]; 5. 1T-Tyler Erb[8]; 6. 28W-Ian Whisler[2]; 7. 30G-Jordan Grabouski[5]; 8. 6J-Jake Neal[6]; 9. 45D-Dan Battaglia[9]
Penske Shocks Heat 1 8 Laps | 00:01:55.000 1. 58-Garrett Alberson[1]; 2. 16-Tyler Bruening[3]; 3. 40B-Kyle Bronson[4]; 4. 04-Tad Pospisil[6]; 5. 28-Sam Mars[2]; 6. 14S-Colen Winebarger[5]; 7. 07-Ben Sukup[8]; 8. 7D-Dusty Leonard[7]; 9. (DNS) 8-Dilon McCowan
Summit Racing Heat 2 8 Laps | 00:01:56.000 1. 49-Jonathan Davenport[2]; 2. 76N-Blair Nothdurft[1]; 3. 76-Brandon Overton[3]; 4. 79-Donald McIntosh[5]; 5. 18C-Chase Junghans[7]; 6. 18D-Daulton Wilson[4]; 7. 19M-Spencer Hughes[8]; 8. 10-Junior Coover[9]; 9. 6-Clay Harris[6]
Cool-It Thermo Tec Heat 3 8 Laps | 00:03:54.000 1. 20RT-Ricky Thornton Jr[1]; 2. 93-Carson Ferguson[7]; 3. 22-Daniel Hilsabeck[2]; 4. 35D-Dylan Silman[4]; 5. 38T-Dylan Thornton[6]; 6. 93L-Cory Lawler[8]; 7. 30G-Jordan Grabouski[5]; 8. 71-Hudson O'Neal[3]; 9. (DNS) 45D-Dan Battaglia
Simpson Race Products Heat 4 8 Laps | 00:03:42.000 1. 1-Brandon Sheppard[2]; 2. 99-Devin Moran[4]; 3. 60-Dan Ebert[3]; 4. 15-Clay Stuckey[5]; 5. 28W-Ian Whisler[6]; 6. 18 Jesse Sobbing[1]; 7. 6J-Jake Neal[7]; 8. 1T-Tyler Erb[8]
Qualifying | GROUP A | 00:00:27.000 1. 58-Garrett Alberson, 00:13.041[10]; 2. 76N-Blair Nothdurft, 00:13.420[14]; 3. 28-Sam Mars, 00:13.483[3]; 4. 49-Jonathan Davenport, 00:13.499[5]; 5. 16-Tyler Bruening, 00:13.504[6]; 6. 76-Brandon Overton, 00:13.564[1]; 7. 40B-Kyle Bronson, 00:13.571[16]; 8. 18D-Daulton Wilson, 00:13.577[2]; 9. 14S-Collen Winebarger, 00:13.602[12]; 10. 79-Donald McIntosh, 00:13.661[7]; 11. 04-Tad Pospisil, 00:13.712[8]; 12. 6-Clay Harris, 00:13.715[17]; 13. 7D-Dusty Leonard, 00:13.718[4]; 14. 18C-Chase Junghans, 00:13.730[11]; 15. 07-Ben Sukup, 00:13.796[15]; 16. 19M-Spencer Hughes, 00:13.807[13]; 17. 8 Dillon McCowan, 00:13.811[9]; 18. 10-Junior Coover, 00:14.578[18]
Qualifying | GROUP B | 00:05:37.000 1. 20RT-Ricky Thornton Jr, 00:13.368[6]; 2. 18-Jesse Sobbing, 00:13.590[1]; 3. 22-Daniel Hilsabeck, 00:13.709[5]; 4. 1 Brandon Sheppard, 00:13.739[10]; 5. 71-Hudson O'Neal, 00:13.740[3]; 6. 60-Dan Ebert, 00:13.751[16]; 7. 35D-Dylan Si lman, 00:13.775[2]; 8. 99-Devin Moran, 00:13.781[12]; 9. 30G-Jordan Grabouski, 00:13.781[17]; 10. 15-Clay Stuckey, 00:13.816[13]; 11. 38T-Dylan Thornton, 00:13.879[15]; 12. 28W-Ian Whisler, 00:13.905[4]; 13. 93-Carson Ferguson, 00:13.940[9]; 14. 6J-Jake Neal, 00:13.997[7]; 15. 93L-Cory Lawler, 00:14.033[14]; 16. 1T-Tyler Erb, 00:14.038[8]; 17. (DNS) 45D-Dan Battaglia
Hot Laps GROUP 1 | 00:00:28.000 1. 18D-Daulton Wilson[2]; 2. 16-Tyler Bruening[6]; 3. 28-Sam Mars[3]; 4. 76-Brandon Overton[1]; 5. 79-Donald McIntosh[7]; 6. 7D-Dusty Leonard[4]; 7. 04-Tad Pospisil[8]; 8. 49-Jonathan Davenport[5]; 9. 8-Dilon McCowan[9]
GROUP 2 | 00:00:45.000 1. 58-Garrett Alberson[1]; 2. 40B-Kyle Bronson[7]; 3. 76N-Blair Nothdurft[5]; 4. 14S-Co len Winebarger[3]; 5. 18C-Chase Junghans[2]; 6. 19M-Spencer Hughes[4]; 7. 6-Clay Harris[8]; 8. 07-Ben Sukup[6]; 9. 10-Junior Coover[9]
GROUP 3 | 00:00:41.000 1. 1T-Tyler Erb[8]; 2. 20RT-Ricky Thornton Jr[6]; 3. 71-Hudson O'Neal[3]; 4. 22-Daniel Hilsabeck[5]; 5. 35D-Dylan Si lman[2]; 6. 93-Carson Ferguson[9]; 7. 18-Jesse Sobbing[1]; 8. 28W-Ian Whisler[4]; 9. 6J-Jake Neal[7]
GROUP 4 | 00:00:41.000 1. 60-Dan Ebert[7]; 2. 1-Brandon Sheppard[1]; 3. 15-Clay Stuckey[4]; 4. 99-Devin Moran[3]; 5. 30G-Jordan Grabouski[8]; 6. 38T-Dylan Thornton[6]; 7. 93L-Cory Lawler[5]; 8. (DNS) 45D-Dan Battaglia