CLERMONT, Ind. – For the third race in a row, the battle for the win in the Rowdy Energy Super Select Series was decided by a bumper.
Unlike the first two weeks, however, the side-by-side battle that determined the eventual winner of Saturday night’s round at Lucas Oil Raceway was not coming off turn four to the checkered flag.
The 30th lap of the 100-lap main event at the .686-mile oval just outside of Indianapolis saw Kaden Honeycutt and Riley Stenjem go door to door for the race lead down the backstretch, moments before the second caution of the race waved for a coming together between John Peters and Logan Runyon.
At the point of yellow, Honeycutt had a nose out in front of Stenjem and was scored as the race leader, giving him control of the field for the ensuing restart.
As it ultimately turned out, that shift of control turned out to make all the difference.
From that point on, Honeycutt mastered restart after restart – six of them in total from lap 36 to the finish – en route to his first Super Select victory of the season.
With his triumph, Honeycutt became the third different winner in three Super Select races this year. He led the final 71 laps before parking his No. 2 in victory lane.
“After I passed the 76 of (Cayden) Lapcevich, I knew I was working with something on the bottom. At that point, I said ‘OK, let me try it again’ and I ran the apron in that corner to try and do something. I didn’t even think it was going to stick, but my tires just hooked up to it and fortunately that caution came out when I was half a car length ahead in front of him. That was the deciding factor,” Honeycutt said. “That was so exciting, I’m so glad to rebound from last week. We had such terrible luck at USA (Int’l Speedway) and I’m just glad to be able to rebound back.”
The key to Honeycutt’s domination in the second half? He found a secret weapon for his restarts that no one else had.
“I didn’t really think people would start in second gear. I restarted in first gear just about every restart, except the first one … and that’s when I took the lead away from Riley (Stenjem),” Honeycutt noted. “I was like, ‘I don’t understand why people are restarting in second gear, it just seems kind of silly,’ because it seemed to bog the motor down. I just popped it in first gear and it took off.”
After several weeks of bad luck on the iRacing service, including in the eNASCAR iRacing Road to Pro, Honeycutt was relieved to get back to victory lane and get the winless monkey off his back.
“This feels so awesome, it gives you more confidence to go win more and more races I get into now,” he said. “Lanier was okay, finished seventh there. And then USA was just a really hard place for me to get around. We come here to a place I’ve been to and had experience before in the ARCA Menards Series, I just took that experience and applied it and man, it’s just crazy how real-life experience comes into play on everything you do.”
Devon Morgan, who won the season-opening eRattler 250 two weeks earlier and battled with Stenjem late in the race, passed Stenjem’s No. 77 inside of 15 to go and hung on to finish second.
Parker Retzlaff and eNASCAR Coca-Cola iRacing Series regular Alex McCollum completed the top five.
The results:
1. Kaden Honeycutt, 2. Devon Morgan, 3. Riley Stenjem, 4. Parker Retzlaff, 5. Alex McCollum, 6. Connor Okrzesik, 7. Rafe Slate, 8. Carson Hocevar, 9. Treyten Lapcevich, 10. Corey Deuser, 11. Kole Raz, 12. Travis Braden, 13. John Peters, 14. Sammy Smith, 15. Cayden Lapcevich, 16. Anthony Sergi, 17. Mason Diaz, 18. Greg Van Alst, 19. Daniel Dye, 20. Ryan Doucette, 21. Rodney Childers, 22. Max Cookson, 23. Logan Runyon, 24. Corey Heim, 25. Kyle Busch, 26. Jeremy Pate, 27. Colin Allman, 28. Gio Bromante, 29. Ryan Kuhn, 30. Derek Griffith, 31. Chris Dilbeck, 32. Chris Gabehart, 33. Cole Williams, 34. Perry Patino.
Lead Changes: Two among three drivers
Lap Leaders: Cayden Lapcevich 1-2, Riley Stenjem 3-29, Kaden Honeycutt 30-100.
Laps Led: Kaden Honeycutt 71, Riley Stenjem 27, Cayden Lapcevich 2.
Caution Flags: Seven for 36 laps
Hard Charger: 14-Corey Deuser (+19)
Margin of Victory: 1.115 seconds
Average Speed: 81.379 mph