Sam Hafertepe Jr. continues to cement his legacy as one of the most accomplished drivers in American Sprint Car Series history with his fifth-straight Feature win Saturday night at Benton Speedway.
The five-time Series champion from Sunnyvale, TX, has tied the national Series record for most consecutive Feature wins, which was originally set in 2005 by four-time Series champion Gary Wright and later tied by Hafertepe in 2017. He’s never been one to get caught up in statistics or record book facts, but the accomplishments he and the Hill’s Racing Team have made in their time together are not lost on him.
“To win five-in-a-row, not a lot of guys can do that, and it’s pretty awesome to be able to do that twice,” Hafertepe said. “To put your name anywhere with Gary Wright is a feat in itself.”
The streak began at the beginning of July, when Hafertepe swept both races of The Big One on Independence Day weekend at Belleville High Banks. A third-straight win came last Friday night at Creek County Speedway before the weekend sweep of Windy Hollow Speedway and Benton. He’s now up to 85 career national Series Feature wins — eight of which have come in 2025 alone — and now leads the championship points standings by 173 points over Blake Hahn.
His win Friday at Windy Hollow was a dominant showing from start-to-finish, but Hafertepe was put through a bit more adversity at Benton. He jumped to the lead in the opening laps but quickly reached lapped traffic, slowing his pace and opening the door for Matt Covington to throw a slidejob on him to take the lead on Lap 8.
Covington led through the halfway point until disaster struck on Lap 17. With heavy lapped traffic in front of him and Hafertepe on his tail, Covington attempted to pass multiple cars in Turns 1–2 and made contact with Kory Bales, sending the No. 95 around and stalling out in Turn 2. This sent Covington to the back of the field and handed the lead to Hafertepe for the next restart.
“I went to slide the 88 car, and the 5 car that was in front of him I thought just peeled off the cushion a little bit — Cody said he was spinning out — and I tapped his left-rear with my right-front and it looped me around,” Covington said. “[Hafertepe] got into me a little bit — luckily just a little bit, didn’t ruin his night too — and it broke my Jacobs ladder.”
Despite the misfortune, Hafertepe had the confidence he would have regained the lead again on his own.
“I didn’t know [Covington] was gonna crash, but I did know that if I bided my time, he’d get in the situation where maybe I could get him back,” Hafertepe said. “With that long of a race, we were only 10–11 laps in, I knew I had time to do what I needed to do to get back by him.”
Meanwhile, a seventh-starting Hahn had made progress on his way up through the field and lined up third behind Rookie of the Year contender Garrett Benson for the restart with 13 laps left. The two immediately engaged in a slidejob battle, but Hahn was able to seal the pass for the runner-up spot on Lap 19 and set his sights on the No. 15H out front.
A restart with 10 laps remaining saw Hahn take a shot at the top spot, throwing a slidejob on Hafertepe in Turns 1–2, which Hafertepe defended with a crossover maneuver and a slidejob of his own in Turns 3–4 to take the lead back before the yellow flag was displayed again. Covington had broken at the rear of the field and was towed off the track, officially scored 19th at the finish.
One final restart gave Hafertepe another shot at playing defense on Hahn, which he did after a bit of game-planning under the caution period.
“[Hahn] was getting to the lead because I had a bad restart,” Hafertepe said. “Once I timed my restart better in (Turns) 3–4, I actually took off early in 3, and I think that kinda sealed it for me. It got me off 4 really nice, and it was smooth sailing from there on out.”
“Sam’s such a smart racer, he wasn’t gonna let that happen again,” Hahn said. “He changed where he took off from in the corner. I still had a good enough start to be able to slide him, but he was moving down, making sure I wasn’t going to be able to make that slider across.”
After the final restart, Hafertepe cruised to the checkered flag untouched, with Hahn in second and Benson in third.
Benson’s third-place run garnered him his first career national Series podium. The result also marked his fifth-straight top-10 finish, helping to push him past fellow Rookie of the Year contender Brady Baker for fifth in the championship points standings. Benson now leads in the Rookie points chase by 14 points over Baker.
2023 Series champion Jason Martin crossed the stripe in fourth, while Austyn Gossel completed the top five.
Hafertepe turned the fastest lap in WEDG High Performance Karts Hot Laps at 14.714 seconds and was also the fastest driver in Qualifying with a lap time of 13.956 seconds.
Heat Races were won by Tucker Boulton (Heat 1), Landon Britt (Heat 2) and Garrett Benson (Heat 3).
Hafertepe was the victor of the Honest Abe Roofing Dash.
UP NEXT
The American Sprint Car Series heads to Knoxville Raceway this Thursday–Saturday, July 31–Aug. 2, for the 35th annual Xtream powered by Mediacom 360 Knoxville Nationals presented by Great Southern Bank.
Tickets for the event are on sale in advance at KnoxvilleRaceway.com and will also be sold at the track. If you can’t attend, stream every lap live on DIRTVision.
FEATURE RESULTS (view all results)
Feature (30 Laps): 1. 15H-Sam Hafertepe Jr[1]; 2. 52-Blake Hahn[7]; 3. 2B-Garrett Benson[5]; 4. 36-Jason Martin[10]; 5. 16G-Austyn Gossel[3]; 6. 14-Jordon Mallett[9]; 7. 88R-Ryder Laplante[16]; 8. 34-Sterling Cling[8]; 9. 71-Brady Baker[13]; 10. 10-Landon Britt[6]; 11. 45X-Kyler Johnson[12]; 12. 2J-Zach Blurton[11]; 13. 4X-Chase Howard[14]; 14. 44R-Ronny Howard[17]; 15. 5D-Zach Daum[23]; 16. 2-Chase Porter[20]; 17. 88-Terry Easum[19]; 18. 88C-Brogan Carder[18]; 19. 95-Matt Covington[2]; 20. 5-Kory Bales[15]; 21. 7D-Dylan DeJournett[21]; 22. 901-Tucker Boulton[4]; 23. 19P-Brady Parmeley[22]; 24. 3D-Jake Diehl[24]
