by Jacob Hord, @HordRaceWatcher
An absolutely sweltering July Friday would be no match for the heat that was on the track at Attica Raceway Park for another installment of the AFCS Sprints.
Diving right into the 30 lap, $4,000 to win Feature, because it was a doozy. Trey Jacobs and Mike Keegan, who was making his pseudo-first 410 start at Attica, would lead the field to the green flag with Cale Thomas and Cap Henry behind them. Similar to the week before, Henry used the initial start to pass the cars in front of him. The only difference between last week and this week? Henry was able to snag the lead from Keegan. Keegan did hold the lead momentarily coming out of turns one and two, but Henry had a run down the backstretch and was able to slide Keegan for the lead in turns three and four.
The yellow came out for Duane Zablocki on lap one, but it was determined that everyone except Zablocki had crossed the start/finish line, so the first lap counted and Henry would be able to keep the lead.
“It was a real good opening lap. I kinda knew that the top was really good, I rolled around there on the warm-up lap. I had enough momentum coming down the backstretch to slide Mikey Keegan, and then just got lucky that the lap counted,” said Henry.
“Things went our way right off the bat,” Henry continued.
Henry got a good restart and put some distance between himself and Keegan. Henry’s lead would be 1.761 seconds on lap three. As the red 33W pulled away, Keegan found Thomas all over him for the second spot. They were side-by-side at the line coming to lap four. Thomas was able to nab the second spot going down the backstretch on lap four.
While Thomas made his way by Keegan, Henry had extended his lead to 2.694 seconds, but lapped traffic loomed for the leader. Henry got to said lapped traffic, and Thomas started reeling Henry in. Thomas took a second out of Henry’s lead by lap seven, and another seven tenths of a second on lap nine to get the lead down to .903 seconds. There was only one lapped car between the top two. Henry was able to maneuver through traffic and get four cars between himself and the charging Thomas, extending the lead to over a second once again. Thomas got by the four lapped cars and had his sights set on Henry, but the caution would come out, getting Henry out of lapped traffic and into clean air.
On the second restart of the night, Henry got a good jump and gapped Thomas by .789 seconds. Clean air was Henry’s best friend, as he was able to add to his lead and get it over the one-second mark on the following lap. But, at the halfway mark, Thomas started reeling Henry in once again. With impending lapped traffic on lap 17, Thomas and Henry found themselves primed for battle. The lead was slashed to half a second on lap 18, but it appeared that Thomas was much closer than that. Thomas got a run down the backstretch and showed a nose to Henry in turns three and four, but Henry was able to fend off the challenge. Luckily for Henry, the caution flew for fifth-starting Broc Martin, who went over the top of turns one and two.
“I think I was too committed for too long on the top all the way around,” Henry said. “Then, when I moved down, I didn’t fully move down like I should have.”
Thomas had a restart to figure out what Henry might do, and Cale was a quick learner. Thomas was able to stay much closer to Henry on this third restart. Henry still maintained a half-second lead, but Thomas was well within striking distance. Thomas took another peak at the inside of Henry in turns three and four on lap 22, but Henry was able to get a better run down the front stretch. The same thing happened on lap 23: close but no cigar for Thomas.
That’s when it all came to a head. Lapped traffic seemed to be the bane of Henry’s race. On lap 24, lapped traffic was a factor again, and as lap 24 turned to lap 25, Henry and Thomas were nose-to-tail. Thomas dove under Henry in turns one and two, and they drag raced down the backstretch for the lead. Thomas committed to the top in turns three and four. Henry ran about a car-width and a half lower. On the exit of turn four, Henry washed up, and had to slow down to correct himself. As the 33W came back down, Thomas had nowhere to go as he had tried to cut under Henry’s slider. The leaders made contact, and Thomas drew the short stick and ended up flipping softly, ending his night and bringing out the red flag on lap 26.
On what would be the final restart of the race, Henry had a new foe in second place: Byron Reed. Was there any damage to the 33W from the contact with Thomas? How bad does Reed want to win in his final season? Questions that would be answered as they came back to green. Henry jumped out to the lead, and Reed was able to stay with him for the first lap. The clean air was just too much to overcome for Reed, though. Henry was able to run away for his third Attica win of the season, his seventh overall, and extend both his Attica and AFCS points leads. Byron Reed, Trey Jacobs, Travis Philo and TJ Michael rounded out the top five.
The contact between Henry and Thomas wasn’t ideal for either driver. But, they both knew it was a racing deal.
Cap Henry’s thoughts on what happened: “I got into a situation where I didn’t have any momentum and I tried sliding myself in three and four. I jumped the curb and had no speed coming onto the straightaway. Unfortunately, Cale’s car got crashed there, and you definitely don’t want that to happen for someone else.”
Henry continued: “I tried sliding myself to block his entry into three, and then get back to the curb, but I slid across too fast and when I hit the curb, I jumped it and almost had to stop to get the thing gathered back up. Then we just hit coming off of four unfortunately.”
It was a tough pill to swallow for Cale Thomas, as he looked poised to take another Attica win in his first night in the Jay Kiser 23.
“I knew Cap was struggling on the top, especially off of two. Once we got to traffic again, I waited and got beside him down the backstretch. He blocked into three, which was fine. So I went to the top, and I just don’t think he expected to wash up like he did. He went to get to the cushion, and when he did, it got really sideways in front of me, and I ran the top, so I had a run and had nowhere to go. It wasn’t malicious or anything on his part, just a racing incident,” said Thomas about the contact.
Henry’s last three AFCS finishes are first, second and first. Throw in a top ten with the High Limit Racing Series on Wednesday in Grandview, and its safe to say that Henry is riding a hot streak into the back half of the AFCS weekend at Fremont Speedway on Saturday:
“We’ve been really good, and we’re fortunate that Zack [Myers, crew chief] get to jump into some really good cars. The Jeff Ward 33W has been really good, Marc Dailey’s 2MD there at Grandview was another really good car. I’m just super fortunate for all the people that help us do this.
Cap Henry’s full post-race interview can be found here: Cap Henry post-Win at Attica 7/28/23
Cale Thomas’ full post-race interview can be found here: Cale Thomas post-race at Attica 7/28/23