ATTICA, Ohio — Cap Henry overcame a poor qualifying effort Friday at Attica Raceway Park and defended his home “turf” to open the 42nd annual Ohio Sprint Speedweek with a $6,000 victory in the Bert and Brigette Emick Classic.
Henry’s winning performance began in his heat race as he charged from eighth starting spot to a win to lock into the dash where he finished second to put him starting third for the 40-lap feature.
Attica’s 2023 track champion who won earlier this year, watched Creed Kemenah and Emerson Axsom battle for the lead early with Kemenah leading the first seven circuits before Axsom took over on lap eight.
Henry stole second from Kemenah on lap 22 and quickly closed on Axsom, driving into the lead in lapped traffic on lap 25.
Henry sliced through lapped traffic to build a nearly six-second lead until a caution flew with just two laps to go another caution just after the white flag gave Greg Wilson a shot at Henry but he was just too strong and drove to his 18th career Attica win over Wilson, Axsom, Craig Mintz and Zeth Sabo.
“After my qualifying Zack (Meyers, crew chief) said told me if that’s all the better I could drive we should just load up and go home,” Henry said. “But, my guys went to work and we were able to win the heat and put us in a position to win. Zack, Jeff (Ward), the Wilsons (Chris and Chad) and everyone works so hard on this.
“We haven’t been very good or consistent this year but they have never quit working. Thanks to Doug Berryman and all his help with our shocks we are beginning to turn things around and this is a great start to Speedweek.”
Bryce Lucius was the fast qualifier for the 52-car field with a lap of 13.093 seconds.
Rusty Schlenk turned in a dominant performance in the Whistle Stop Presents the Dirt Nerds Podcast Powered by Propane UMP Late Model feature.
The three-time national UMP champion not only led all 25 laps of the feature that saw only one caution, he lapped up to sixth place and his winning margin was nearly nine seconds.
It was Schlenk’s fourth win of the year at Attica and the 42nd of his career at the track with last week’s winner Kyle Moore, defending track champion Devin Shiels, Mike Bores and Ryan Markham rounding out the top five.
The finish:
Feature (40 Laps): 1. 33W-Cap Henry[3] ; 2. W20-Greg Wilson[4] ; 3. 27-Emerson Axsom[2] ; 4. 09-Craig Mintz[14] ; 5. 29-Zeth Sabo[13] ; 6. 2-Ricky Peterson[12] ; 7. 9-Trey Jacobs[7] ; 8. 99-Skylar Gee[22] ; 9. 101-Kalib Henry[15] ; 10. 34-Sterling Cling[5] ; 11. 15K-Creed Kemenah[1] ; 12. 4-Zane DeVault[6] ; 13. 16T-Cole Macedo[11] ; 14. 28M-Conner Morrell[24] ; 15. 25R-Jordan Ryan[17] ; 16. 1-Nate Dussel[23] ; 17. 17-Dylan Norris[10] ; 18. 49X-Tim Shaffer[18] ; 19. 70-Henry Malcuit[9] ; 20. 22S-Brandon Spithaler[20] ; 21. 5AU-Brock Hallett[16] ; 22. 19-TJ Michael[21] ; 23. 32-Bryce Lucius[8] ; 24. 21K-Larry Kingseed Jr[19]
