by Jacob Hord, @HordRaceWatcher
After missing the feature at the season opener a few weeks ago, defending Attica 410 track champion Cap Henry was poised to get back to his winning ways. Henry, pilot of the Jeff Ward Motorsports 33W got right down to business from unloading.
Henry was fastest in his group in qualifying, won his heat race from the fourth starting spot, drew the pole for the dash, and proceeded to win the dash, putting him on pole of the 30 lap, $6,000 to win feature on an Attica track that had some attitude.
To his outside was Cale Thomas, opening night’s runner-up, and expected heavy-hitter this year in the Jay Kiser 23 car. Nate Dussel, opening night’s third place finisher, Trey Jacobs, and opening night’s winner Bryce Lucius rounded out the top five starters.
On the start, Henry and Thomas were nose-to-tail, gapping the rest of the field. That gap was quickly erased, though, as Travis Philo ended up on his side in turns three and four, bringing out the red flag on lap two. Third place Dussel was 1.598 seconds back of Henry and Thomas through those first two laps with Henry holding a slight .266 second advantage over Thomas.
Henry got a good restart, and put some pace between himself and Thomas. By lap five, Henry’s lead over Thomas was .738 seconds, as Lucius worked his way past Dussel for third. As they got to lap ten, lapped traffic was getting close to Henry, and his lead started to shrink. It was down to .183 seconds, but the red flag flew for third-running Bryce Lucius who took a vicious ride off the banking of turn one. He was OK.
Thomas got a better restart this time around, and spent the first green flag lap on Henry’s rear bumper. Another yellow came out, though. On the ensuing restart, Dussel took a peak under Thomas for second, but Thomas was able to hold Dussel off. On lap 13, Henry’s advantage over Thomas was .947 seconds. That grew to 1.312 seconds at the halfway point. The race really took a turn on lap 17, as Thomas coasted off the backstretch, bringing out the yellow. For the second race in a row, something in the steering broke for Thomas.
This promoted Dussel to second, Trey Jacobs to third, eighth-starting Greg Wilson to fourth, and Zane DeVault to fifth. Henry rocketed out to the lead on the restart, gapping Dussel by 1.132 seconds on lap 18, which grew by over half a second on lap 19, and was up over 3.4 seconds on lap 21, until the red flag flew again, this time for Kalib Henry, who tipped over in turns one and two.
On the final restart, it was all Cap Henry. He was ahead of Dussel by 1.888 seconds, but out of nowhere, here came ninth-starting Emerson Axsom. He picked off DeVault, Wilson, and Jacobs, and quickly had his sights set on Dussel for second. Axsom made quick work of Dussel on lap 26 for the second spot, but now only have a handful of laps to make up 2.944 seconds on Henry.
Axsom quickly cut 1.3 seconds out of Henry’s lead as Henry navigated through lapped traffic, but eventually the laps ran out for Axsom, and Cap Henry went on to win his 17th career 410 feature at Attica Raceway Park by 1.444 seconds over Axsom and Wilson.
Trey Jacobs, Zane DeVault, Nate Dussel, Bobby Elliott, Cole Duncan, Jordan Ryan, and Tim Shaffer rounded out the top ten. Attica is back in action next Friday, April 19 for the AFCS 410 and 305 opener, as well as the UMP Late Models.