After eight straight finishes outside the top three, Matt Covington had said he just wanted to get back on the podium.
Mission accomplished.
The Glenpool, OK native accomplished that feat the best way possible by scoring his second American Sprint Car Series win of 2025 at Lakeside Speedway Friday night – the first of two Friday night Features at the Kansas track.
“Victory Lane is what I meant, that’s even sweeter,” Covington said about wanting a podium after leading all 25 laps of the Feature. “We haven’t been running all that great. We haven’t been bad, we just haven’t been on the podium.”
His No. 95 was strong all night, placing second fastest in his Qualifying group, winning the third Heat Race, and winning the Honest Abe Roofing Dash. That put him on the pole for the 25-lap event with five-time Series champion Sam Hafertepe Jr. to his outside.
When the race went green, Covington darted ahead of the field, gapping Hafertepe by two car lengths by the time they reached the backstretch. However, Hafertepe cut that distance in half through Turns 3 and 4, running the top lane, while Covington ran low.
The No. 15H car couldn’t match Covington’s drive off the corner, though, and Hafertepe was left to watch the No. 95 car leave tenths between them every lap.
Covington almost ended his night early on Lap 6 by jumping the cushion in Turn 3 and nearly slapping the wall. The quick scare led to his commitment to the bottom line for the rest of the race.
In clean air, that commitment helped him pull away by over two seconds, but when he hit traffic his pace was hindered. His two-second lead evaporated in about two laps as Hafertepe saw new light with the No. 95 back within reach.
A caution on Lap 10 brought the entire field back to Covington’s rear bumper, but also awarded him a clear track again when the race resumed.
While he led, Hank Davis snuck around Hafertepe for second, and left him to fend off any attacks from Blake Hahn and Chris Martin, who dueled lap after lap for fourth.
Like the previous stint, once Covington hit traffic, second-place closed in. And this time, it was Davis on the attack, running high while Covington continued to roll the bottom. But before Davis could attempt a pass, another caution slowed the field.
When the race resumed for the final time, Covington had the best launch of the night, reaching the backstretch by the time Davis was still making his way through the first corner.
Hafertepe and Martin argued over third for a couple of circuits before the Texan found his rhythm around the top and took one more shot at Covington in the closing laps.
He passed Davis for second on Lap 21 and then closed within a few tenths of Covington on Lap 23.
The two left Turn 4 side by side with the white flag in the air. Covington was able to put a car-length distance between them when they reached Turn 1 and maintained that gap down the backstretch. Neither tip-toed into the final corner, but Hafertepe carried more momentum around the top and pulled even with Covington again through Turn 4.
With the checkered flag waving, Covington’s commitment to the bottom paid off as he was able to launch off the corner better than Hafertepe and beat him to the line by 0.307 sec.
“Luckily, the bottom was good because I could not run the top to save my life,” Covington said. “Got up over the berm twice. Luckily, I didn’t tear it up and get it up into the wall. The car was dynamite on the bottom.”
Hafertepe’s runner-up finish was his second straight podium finish after three finishes outside the top 10. However, he would’ve rather seen the race go caution-free for a better shot at stealing the win away.
“Anybody can ride out there by themselves, but when you get in lap traffic it’s tough,” Hafertepe said. “That’s kind of what we were waiting for. We were a little tight restarting right behind those guys. Once they got a little traffic we can move around them. Sometimes guys are pretty complacent with where they’re at and we’re not. We want to move around. We want to pass cars. Would’ve liked to not see any of those cautions and kept it green, and race with the traffic, that’s when this place gets really fun.”
Blake Hahn rounded out the podium, while Cameron Martin scored his third ASCS National Series top-five finish with his fourth-place run, and Hank Davis held on to finish fifth.
UP NEXT
The American Sprint Car Series is back in action in Kansas at 81 Speedway on Saturday, Sept. 6. Then, the Series returns to Nebraska’s Eagle Raceway for the Stewart Alley Memorial on Sunday, Sept. 7.
Tickets for the two events will be sold at the track on race day. If you can’t be there, stream every lap live on DIRTVision.
ABBREVIATED RESULTS
Feature (25 Laps): 1. 95-Matt Covington[1]; 2. 15H-Sam Hafertepe Jr[2]; 3. 52-Blake Hahn[7]; 4. 4-Cameron Martin[5]; 5. 11X-Hank Davis[6]; 6. 44-Chris Martin[3]; 7. 3Z-Cole Vanderheiden[17]; 8. 2-Chase Porter[10]; 9. 36-Jason Martin[8]; 10. 77-Jack Wagner[16]; 11. 45X-Kyler Johnson[22]; 12. 17B-Ryan Bickett[20]; 13. 10-Landon Britt[23]; 14. 91-Scotty Thiel[15]; 15. 88R-Ryder Laplante[9]; 16. 2J-Zach Blurton[11]; 17. 88-Terry Easum[21]; 18. 16G-Austyn Gossel[24]; 19. 73-Samuel Wagner[14]; 20. 2B-Garrett Benson[13]; 21. 88C-Brogan Carder[18]; 22. 2C-Brekton Crouch[19]; 23. 99-Tony Rost[4]; 24. 71-Brady Baker[12]
