{"id":50801,"date":"2026-04-11T07:56:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-11T11:56:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/?p=50801"},"modified":"2026-04-07T10:58:54","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T14:58:54","slug":"the-left-turn-167","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/the-left-turn-167\/","title":{"rendered":"The Left Turn\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-full is-resized\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"666\" height=\"444\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/No-20-Ricky-Thornton-Jr-wins-at-Atomic-Photo-Credit-Campbell-Phtography.jpg?fit=666%2C444&amp;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-50802\" style=\"width:450px\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><strong>No. 20 Ricky Thornton Jr wins at Atomic Photo Credit Campbell Photography<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>By: Ron Burt<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Sunday, March 29th, Park City Kansas. 81 Speedway. Michael \u201cBuddy\u201d Kofoid reminded everyone a great life lesson, never give up. The World of Outlaw Sprint Car driver. After 15 laps of the 30 circuit feature, the race looked over. Ryan Timms had a 4 second lead over Buddy, working his way through traffic. Kofoid started to get some momentum and by lap 21 he was only 2 seconds behind the leader. When the white flag flew for the final lap, the two cars were nose to tail. Out of turn 1, Timms extended the lead to 2 car lengths. Kofoid kept his car within striking distance. Then<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Kofoid pulled off an amazing slide job going into turns 3 and 4. Timms had his car too high on the cushion and couldn\u2019t cross over on Buddy. It was a wild finish. &nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Kofoid became the third multi-time winner of the season, joining David Gravel&nbsp;and Anthony Macri. Kofoid equaled Ron Shuman for 28th on the all-time World of Outlaws win list with his 24th career triumph. The win moved him\u201d back up to 4th in the current standings. Ryan Timms, Cole Macedo, Carson Macedo and Donny Schatz completed the top 5. The Greatest Show on Dirt will take off Easter weekend and will be back in action April 10th and 11th at I-55 Speedway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">The Buckeye Spring 50, for Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series opened Atomic Speedway in Chillicothe and the biggest Dirt Late Model stars in the country didn\u2019t disappoint the fans. Ricky Thronton Jr started the feature 4th and fought to pick up his first win of the year. With 5 laps remaining, Thronton was able to pass the hard charging Brandon Sheppard who at that point had led the first 45 circuits. The last 5 laps were nose to tail action and the win at the checker was by a half car length. It was a repeat win for Ricky. He won last year\u2019s Buckeye Spring Classic at Atomic and took home $15,000.00 and this year he added $16,300.00. Rounding out the Top 5 Brandon Sheppard, who had to fend off Brandon Overton, Josh Rice and Max Blair. Brandon Sheppard won Saturday at Brownstown Speedway in Indiana.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">The current Top 5 in points Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series 1st Devin Moran 1625, 2nd Hudson O\u2019Neal 1610, 3rd Brandon Overton 1530, 4th Ricky Thornton Jr. 1525 and 5th Max Blair. The next action for the series will be Georgetown Speedway DE, Friday, April 24th.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Pro Legends were the support group for the Late Models. Quade Schoonover won the feature followed by 2nd Steven Partin and Quintin Adams 3rd. The next night at Atomic will be April 11th featuring the Fast on Dirt 410 Sprint Series, The American Late Model Iron-Man Series and the Sport Mods.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Shadybowl Speedway, in De Graff opened its doors on Sunday afternoon with a packed house and lots of cars. The World\u2019s fastest paved 3\/10th mile oval hosted the 14th Annual Cabin Fever Championships. The Vore\u2019s HRA Late Models ran the circuit 50 laps and Josh Sage took the checker flag, big trophy and a big check. Ryan Fleming was on the winner\u2019s bumper for 2nd and Zach Stacy finished 3rd.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Terry Fisher Jr. took command of the Modified feature and never had to look back. The race went flag-to-flag, completing the 50-lap feature in 12 minutes with nonstop green flag action for the Mods. Mike Carroll had to settle for 2nd and Carson Klingelhofer 3rd.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Other winners opening day Vore\u2019s Compact Touring Series Bo Hoelscher, Crown Vics Matt Parsons, and Street Stock Feature Buck Purtee.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">It was announced this week that Oakshade Raceway in Wauseon will host the Hammer Down Showdown September 26th. The Fremont Dirt Trucks vs the Dominator Super Stocks from Oakshade and other racetracks. This year it\u2019s one night only and only at Oakshade Raceway.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Until next week, keep your wheels down. Ron out!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By: Ron Burt Sunday, March 29th, Park City Kansas. 81 Speedway. Michael \u201cBuddy\u201d Kofoid reminded everyone a great life lesson,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":50802,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","nf_dc_page":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,5],"tags":[19382,15368,9803,14356],"class_list":["post-50801","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-columns","category-sports","tag-campbell-photography","tag-ohio-sports-blitz","tag-ron-burt","tag-the-left-turn"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/No-20-Ricky-Thornton-Jr-wins-at-Atomic-Photo-Credit-Campbell-Phtography.jpg?fit=666%2C444&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2YQd9-ddn","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-18 10:37:28","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50801","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50801"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50801\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50803,"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50801\/revisions\/50803"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50802"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50801"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50801"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westbendnews.net\/autonews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50801"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}