Port Royal, PA — After winning and leading all but one lap on Friday night, Ricky Thornton Jr. would have to battle his way to Kish Bank victory lane on Saturday’s Rumble by the River finale race at Port Royal Speedway. After starting outside of the third row, and battling with Chris Madden, Thornton would do just that and take home over $50,000 at the end of the racing program.

Carson Ferguson and Chris Madden would compose the front row of the 50 lap A-main event on Saturday night with Madden taking the early lead.

Madden would lead the opening 9 laps of the feature event with a lead growing to over 2-seconds when the caution flag would wave for Wil Herrington who was slowing on the backstretch.

With the field stacked back up behind Madden on the restart, this would allow for some shuffling inside the podium positions. Once back green, Devin Moran, Jonathan Davenport, and Jonathan Davenport would power by Carson Ferguson for the second, third, and fourth place positions trying to gun down Madden.

With 12 laps completed, Davenport and Moran would begin to battle for the runner up spot while Thornton would have to hold off challenges from Garret Alberson who was running in fifth.

Following a caution with 31 laps remaining for a slowing Daulton Wilson, Thornton Jr. would begin his siege for the top spot.

Once the field powered back to life, Thornton would go around Moran to the outside for the runner up position and begin to track down Madden.

With just under 30 laps to go, Thornton would show Madden the nose of his racing machine both to the leader’s outside and inside around the corners of the race track before he would make a full pass attempt for the lead with 27 laps remaining.

Thornton would go around the top side of turns one and two to get around Madden for the lead.

However, a slowing Wil Herrington would draw another caution with 17 laps to go to give Madden another shot at taking the top position back away.

Madden would get a good jump on the restart to allow himself to pull alongside Thornton for the lead in turns one and two, but he left a lane for Thornton on the top side of the race track for the 20RT driver to power back by for the lead.

The second place running Madden would keep pace with Thornton over the next 4 laps before another caution would come out for a slowing Daniel Hilsabeck would draw the field back together.

On this next restart attempt, Madden would not be as generous with the race track to Thornton, as he would get another good restart down the front straightaway and would pull off a sliding pass on Thornton.

Thornton, who was committed to the top lane of the race track in turn two, would mount a head of steam to catch Madden, but would run into the tail of the leading number 44, causing Thornton to lose his momentum as well as his runner up spot.

Thronton would fall back to third behind Devin Moran and it looked like Thornton dominance on the weekend may be over, when the caution flag would wave one last time with 9 laps to go.

In the final 9 laps of the race, it became a three car battle for the win between Madden, Moran, and Thornton with Moran looking to Madden’s inside through the corners of the race track, but not having enough speed to make the pass.

Thornton would continue to charge off the top side of the corners to mount speed and with 7 laps to go, he would duck past Moran for the second spot.

Thornton would keep his commitment to the top lane, as Madden did the same with the middle, and Thornton would charge on past Madden as well for the lead with 4 laps to go.

Thornton would go on to lead those final 4 laps and taking home the $50,000 Rumble by the River paycheck marking his first win in the event for his career.

Madden would finish in the runner up position and Devin Moran would round out the top three.

In UMP modified competition, Mike Marlar would go perfect on the night as well as perfect on the weekend winning all the events he competed in behind the wheel of the 5M modified.

Marlar would start on the pole of the 25 lap A-main event and would lead by as many as 2.9 seconds to go on to win.

George Dixon would finish in the runner up spot and David Stremme would round out the top three.

Port Royal Speedway will be back in action on Saturday August 30th for the 171st Annual Juniata County Fair Opener which features the 22nd running of the super late model Butch Renninger Memorial. The Weikert’s Livestock 410 sprint cars will also be on hand as well as the Zimmerman Truck Repair limited late models.

For more information about upcoming events, visit portroyalspeedway.com or follow along on social media at Port Royal Speedway Trackside Media on Facebook or @PortRoyalSpdway on X/Twitter.

FULL RESULTS:

LOLMDS A-Main 50 Laps | 00:34:25.945

1. 20RT-Ricky Thornton Jr[6]; 2. 44-Chris Madden[2]; 3. 99-Devin Moran[4]; 4. 1-Brandon Sheppard[7]; 5. 49-Jonathan Davenport[5]; 6. 157-Mike Marlar[11]; 7. 111-Max Blair[15]; 8. 22G-Gregg Satterlee[17]; 9. 76-Brandon Overton[9]; 10. 71-Hudson O’Neal[3]; 11. 79-Donald McIntosh[14]; 12. 93-Carson Ferguson[1]; 13. 58-Garrett Alberson[10]; 14. 66C-Matt Cosner[8]; 15. 24-Rick Eckert[25]; 16. 60-Dan Ebert[20]; 17. 18D-Daulton Wilson[23]; 18. 6-Clay Harris[21]; 19. 7-Ross Robinson[16]; 20. N1-Michael Norris[13]; 21. 22F-Chris Ferguson[12]; 22. 22-Daniel Hilsabeck[24]; 23. 25Z-Mason Zeigler[19]; 24. 15K-Wil Herrington[18]; 25. 48-Colton Flinner[22]

Fast Shafts B-Main 1 10 Laps | 00:05:16.000

1. 22G-Gregg Satterlee[1]; 2. 25Z-Mason Zeigler[3]; 3. 6-Clay Harris[4]; 4. 09-Michael Leach[2]; 5. 1Z-Logan Zarin[7]; 6. 2J-Justin Weaver[6]; 7. 66-Justin Kann[5]; 8. 22-Daniel Hilsabeck[8]; 9. 24Y-Dylan Yoder[10]; 10. 000-Dale Murphy[9]; 11. 24-Rick Eckert[12]; 12. 9-Hayes Mattern[13]; 13. (DNS) 06-Mike Lupfer

UNOH B-Main 2 10 Laps | 00:04:45.000

1. 15K-Wil Herrington[1]; 2. 60-Dan Ebert[3]; 3. 48-Colton Flinner[5]; 4. 27-Trever Feathers[2]; 5. 4-Gary Stuhler[13]; 6. 2-Dan Stone[7]; 7. 4S-Danny Snyder[6]; 8. 93L-Cory Lawler[8]; 9. 21-Chad Myers[11]; 10. 80D-Greg Diehl[10]; 11. 0Y-Andrew Yoder[9]; 12. 18D-Daulton Wilson[12]; 13. D19-Dillan Stake[4]

UMP A Feature 25 Laps | 00:12:09.754

1. 5M-Mike Marlar[1]; 2. 77-George Dixon[3]; 3. 35-David Stremme[2]; 4. 90-Ray Kable[9]; 5. 5T-Ty Norder[7]; 6. 71D-Dan Davies[6]; 7. 35A-Michael Altobelli[8]; 8. 5-Jonathan Taylor[14]; 9. 6-Ryan Ayers[11]; 10. 7T-Evan Taylor[5]; 11. 28-Mason Lobb[13]; 12. 08-Sam Lilly[15]; 13. 72-Todd Neiheiser[10]; 14. 58W-Beau Aikey[19]; 15. 55-Alyssa Rowe[22]; 16. 84-Ryan Toole[16]; 17. 35D-Ryan Dolan[12]; 18. T9-Zack Tate[18]; 19. 11L-Troy Loomis[23]; 20. 8W-Spike Moore[4]; 21. 7D-TJ DeHaven[17]; 22. 28L-Owen Lacey[21]; 23. (DNS) 9R-JP Roberts Jr