The late model portion of the DIRTcar Nationals started out with two feature winners with years of experience on Iowa dirt — Ryan Gustin (left) and Ricky Thornton Jr. (right). Could the key to hunting down gators at Volusia Speedway Park in Florida come buried within the cornfields of the Hawkeye State? We asked the two drivers for their perspective.
Thornton won on Monday. Although he grew up in Chandler, Arizona, he spent five years in Iowa. Thornton won the prestigious IMCA Speedway Motors Super Nationals at Iowa’s Boone Speedway two times in a modified (2016 and 2020) and two times in a late model (2019 and 2020). He just recently moved to Indiana in December.
“The dirt is kind of the same,” Thornton, 31, said of Volusia Speedway Park compared with Iowa dirt tracks. “So, you kind of know how it’s going to transition [over the course of the night].”
Gustin won on Tuesday, his first late model win in more than a year. Prior to racing late models full-time, he steered modifieds throughout the Midwest. In USTMS competition, Gustin scored 101 feature victories (third all-time) and two national series championships (2011–12). He didn’t necessarily agree with Thornton’s assessment.
“The dirt down here has a lot more grit, where back home it’s more black, sticky type of stuff,” said Gustin, 31, of Marshalltown, Iowa. “[The Volusia] dirt still has grip to it, but it has a sand base.”
Both Thornton and Gustin struggled to find a track in the Midwest that compares to the fast ½-mile Volusia Speedway Park.
“It has the speed like Knoxville [Raceway in Iowa] or Oskaloosa [aka Southern Iowa Speedway],” Thornton said. “Webster City [aka Hamilton County Speedway], as far as layout, is kind of like going through [turns] one and two [at Volusia]. Overall, [Volusia] is so different.”
Gustin concurred.
“At Knoxville and Osky, you got to slow down before you enter, where this place you got to blare it in there like Eldora [Speedway in Ohio],” said Gustin. “It’s not anything like them places.”
Maybe, the two drivers found something from their modified experience that helped with steering a late model. Or, maybe not.
“With a modified, you got to slow down and aim for the brown,” Gustin said. “Where with late models, if you slow down, you lose all your aero load.”
Thornton also agreed.
“As far as here, the modified [experience] doesn’t really help,” said Thornton. “For a lot of places, it does help. Here, you drive so different — you’re so on the gas all the time. If you break your momentum, you’re killed.”
Ryan Gustin and Ricky Thornton Jr. do not have many similarities, either, besides their history on Iowa dirt.
“We don’t really drive alike,” Gustin said. “Ricky’s a wheelman, though.”
To be fair, many consider Ryan a wheelman, too. Perhaps, that’s the common thread.
In Iowa, you have the opportunity to race regularly from Wednesday through Sunday, and sometimes with specials on Mondays and Tuesdays, too. With that much racing, drivers compete in far more features than most of the country over the course of a season. Plus, Gustin and Thornton both know what it takes to withstand the rigors of racing night after night after night. However, Gustin doesn’t discount his late model brethren. That’s another trait he honed in Iowa — a respectable dose of humility, despite all his accolades.
“There are a lot of good racers [in the Midwest],” said Gustin. “These guys are the best there are in dirt late models.
“One of my highlights of my career was outrunning them [at Volusia]. It’s far from my biggest payday, but as far as the competition level, it was probably the biggest.”
The Outside Groove Executive Editor has covered motorsports since 2000. His many awards include the 2019 Eastern Motorsport Press Association (EMPA) Jim Hunter Writer of the Year and the 2013 Russ Catlin Award for Excellence in Motorsports Journalism.
