Neither the summer heat nor the American Sprint Car Series’ (ASCS) best regional racers could extinguish Sam Hafertepe Jr.’s hot streak Friday night.
The five-time Series champion from Sunnyvale, TX, garnered his ninth Feature win of the season — sixth in the past seven events — with the national 360 Sprint Car circuit, making the pass for the lead on polesitter Jake Bubak after the halfway point and holding off a final-lap challenge to bank his 86th career Series win and first-ever at WaKeeney Speedway.
A sample of Kansas and Colorado’s regional competition — multiple of whom compete with the ASCS Western Plains Region and ASCS Northern Plains Region — joined the roster for the co-sanctioned event and challenged the national Series regulars throughout the night. Bubak — a native of Arveda, CO — led the charge, turning the fastest lap in his Qualifying group, which ranked second overall behind only Hafertepe’s fastest lap.
When Bubak took the green flag from the pole of the Feature after a win in the Honest Abe Roofing Dash, Hafertepe advanced to the runner-up spot on the opening lap and began the chase at the head of the field.
“I just knew it was gonna be hard to do anything with him in open track,” Hafertepe said. “I knew it was gonna be a tough thing to do. Jake’s a really good racecar driver; he’s a really calculated racecar driver, so I knew I wasn’t going to be able to do anything with him early.”
The two drivers reached the tail of the field on Lap 8 and began working their way through lapped traffic; Bubak maintaining a formidable pace out front as the halfway point neared. But as soon as they crossed the midpoint of the race, Hafertepe made his bid for the lead.
As Bubak crossed the start/finish line to complete Lap 13, Hafertepe rode a wave of speed off Turn 4 and drove deep into Turn 1, pulling up alongside the No. 27B in Turn 2 and making the pass down the backstretch.
“We were better than him in (Turns) 3 and 4, so I got a really good run off of 4 and I thought ‘Man, if I can catch just some of the rubber off the exit, if I get beside him, maybe I can drag him off the corner,’” Hafertepe said. “I got beside him, we both got in the rubber off the exit of 2, and I just got a little better drive off of 2.”
“I thought I needed to conserve my tires, and I just slowed my pace down too far,” Bubak said. “Sam was able to charge and get by us. His pace was much quicker than mine.”
From there, it was all the No. 15H out front. Hafertepe grew his lead to nearly two seconds as he pushed his way through more lapped traffic in the final laps.
Bubak did not go away completely, however. With two laps left, he had trimmed his gap to Hafertepe down to one second, and then to slightly over 0.3 seconds as they took the white flag. With a burst of momentum down the frontstretch, Bubak drove hard into Turn 1 on the outside lane in an attempt to go around Hafertepe and steal the lead back but could not hold the line as Hafertepe drove off with the victory down the backstretch.
“I didn’t to open the bottom up for [Bubak] to dive in there,” Hafertepe said. “I knew we were getting slowed up with the lapped cars, but I didn’t want to press anything. If he was gonna win it, he was gonna have to earn it on the outside, and I knew that’d be probably pretty tough for him to do.”
“Once [Hafertepe] went by, I kinda maintained pace with him and still felt like I saved enough tire to give it one last shot there at the end, but as long as he stayed in the rubber, there was nothing I was gonna do to get by him,” Bubak said.
In the end, Bubak came across the finish line second in what appeared to be his first national ASCS podium of the season. However, he encountered a technical infraction post-race, coming up short of the 1,500-pound minimum weight requirement at the scales, therefore disqualifying him from the event.
That moved third-place finisher Kyler Johnson up into the runner-up position. The native of nearby Quinter, KS, held his spot up front the entire race and marked a new career-best finish for him with the national Series.
Arkansas native Brady Baker was promoted to third place, while Terry Easum and Matt Covington were officially credited with fourth and fifth-place finishes, respectively.
UP NEXT
The American Sprint Car Series next races El Paso County Raceway in Calhan, CO, on Saturday, Aug. 16. Tickets for the event will be sold at the track on race day.
If you can’t be there, stream every lap live on DIRTVision.
FEATURE RESULTS
Feature (25 Laps): 1. 15H-Sam Hafertepe Jr[3]; 2. 45X-Kyler Johnson[2]; 3. 71-Brady Baker[5]; 4. 88-Terry Easum[11]; 5. 95-Matt Covington[13]; 6. 2J-Zach Blurton[9]; 7. 36-Jason Martin[12]; 8. 52-Blake Hahn[6]; 9. 1X-Bryant Wiedeman[10]; 10. 10-Landon Britt[15]; 11. 88C-Brogan Carder[21]; 12. 88K-Jordan Knight[17]; 13. 16G-Austyn Gossel[7]; 14. 88R-Ryder Laplante[16]; 15. 6G-Bryan Gossel[19]; 16. 2B-Garrett Benson[4]; 17. 91-Jeff Stasa[23]; 18. 72-Ray Seemann[22]; 19. 74-Zack Merritt[24]; 20. 77-Cole MacEwen[18]; 21. 5D-Adam Trimble[14]; 22. 71T-Christopher Townsend[20]; 23. 10C-Jeremy Campbell[8]; 24. (DQ) 27B-Jake Bubak[1]
