High speeds. High intensity. And of course, high banks. This is Salina Highbanks Speedway.
The American Sprint Car Series (ASCS) National Tour is set for action at the Oklahoma 3/8-mile dirt oval on Saturday, April 12, marking the Tour’s first event since the season opener at Volusia Speedway Park in January. A 30-lap, $4,000-to-win, main event will highlight the night’s program.
Since its inception in 1992, the ASCS National Tour has made 13 appearances in Salina, producing nine different winners. The last three — Sam Hafertepe Jr. (2014), Blake Hahn (2015) and Jason Martin (2023) — will all make their return to the venue April 12 as part of this year’s 16-car full-time roster and took some time to share their past experiences racing the signature Oklahoma dirt track.
Tickets to see the ASCS National Tour on April 12 will be sold at the track on race day. If you can’t be there to watch in person, stream every lap live on DIRTVision.
What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you think of Salina Highbanks?
Hafertepe: The name kinda sells it. High banks, fast. Honestly, it’s really close to where my wife’s from, so it’s kind of like a second home. We’ve got a lot of family up there. It’s a super-fast place. It’s a 3/8-mile, but it races like a half mile.
Hahn: For me, it’s close to home. I don’t have a whole lot of tracks around here that we get to race at that are real close to home, and [Salina] is one of them. It’s nice, I get to see a bunch of my friends and family out there typically when it’s a race like that. That’s one big thing. It’s got a lot of high-speed, too. I think of high speed, especially after going there with the 410 and seeing how much speed those things carry.
Martin: It’s exactly like the name says — it’s really high-banked, high-speed type of racetrack. It’s typically slick, so it’s something that takes a lot of… your race car has to be pretty good to make speed, for one. But the track changes throughout the race quite a bit. It can go from really fast and heavy early in the night, then it can go to slick and really hard to get ahold of. And then, it can grip-up and really start taking rubber at times, too.
It’s a really fun racetrack; I always enjoy racing there. We’ve had really good success there — the first time we went there, we won. It really suits my driving style and the way our race cars work, and our Don Ott Engines run well there, so I’m looking forward to going back.
You’ve won at Salina Highbanks with the National Tour in the past. What do you remember from that night?
Hafertepe: In 2014, I thought we had a lot of speed that year. We were really quick, just never could put it all together. But Salina was one of those tracks that was right up our alley — super fast, wide, a place where I could keep a lot of speed, and I feel like that’s one of our strengths.
Hahn: My first National [Tour] win was there actually, so it was pretty memorable. It was a good night for us. The track actually took rubber about eight or 10 laps to go, and I think we pretty much led the whole thing. So, it was a good night for us to go run close to home. We had some family and friends out there, my grandma and grandpa were out there for our first national win, so it was a pretty big moment for us. It kinda opened the door for us to be able to pick off some more wins. The first one is so hard to come by, and to finally get that first one was good.
Martin: I felt like we were the fastest car all night long. We were quick time or right there at the top in our Qualifying group, and won our Heat Race, which was really good. The Feature, I think Blake Hahn got out to the lead early in the night and ended up driving off the top of the racetrack in traffic and kinda handed the lead over, but it was kind of a matter of time, I felt like. We were good enough that we were gonna drive by him pretty quickly.
Can you describe the speed and the banking of the track for someone who’s never experienced it?
Hafertepe: I would say Salina is one of the most… there’s a handful of other tracks that may be a little more banked than Salina, but even the straightaways are super banked. Some tracks have flatter straightaways, higher banked corners and have the transition into the corner because the bank changes. But Salina seems to hold the bank quite a bit all the way around.
It’s one of those places where you’re running into the bank and trying to keep as much speed as you can. The car will tend to get on the right-front sometimes because of running into the bank as well.
Hahn: When we go there, it’s kind of different than what we’re used to, typically. It holds you in there. There’s a lot of high speed, and you don’t have to roll out of the throttle on entry like you would at a lot of the smaller tracks like Creek County or Tulsa Speedway. To be able to go there and have that high speed on kind of a smaller track typically produces some good racing.
Martin: At Salina, it’s one of those places where you really feel the G-forces because of the banking. You don’t slow down much in the corners, where at some places, you’ll actually slow down. So, it’d be like running down the interstate at 120 or 130 miles-an-hour and having to get off the interchange and go back the other way and not slowing down.
It just puts a lot of exertion on your body. It is one of those physically demanding places. I do remember there was a lot of guys that were complaining they were wore out and their head dragging over in the seat.
How differently do you set up the car to handle the speed and banking of Salina compared to a smaller, flatter track?
Hafertepe: For most guys they’ll definitely have to do some stuff to keep themselves off the right-front, because when you’re running into that bank, it’s easy to get down on the right-front, and also on the right-rear. The transition when you go from the straightaway to the corner, just hitting that bank, it’ll tend to get the car on the right side.
I would say it’s more not necessarily things you have to do to your race car to get it to handle that place. There are subtle things that we do, but I think mainly it’s how you’re driving and how you attack the corners is the main adjustment you have to make.
Hahn: We don’t change a whole lot. Our setup kinda suits that track, so we seem to have good speed right out of the box when we go there. Typically, we change a few things on like a Knoxville or some half-miles like that, but with [Salina] being pretty small, we kinda keep the small track stuff going on and just do what we normally do.
Martin: It’s just a matter of the different size stagger you got on the car. On a little 1/4-mile, it takes a lot of stagger to get the thing to turn. You can get down to nine or 10 inches of stagger at Salina whenever it gets slick. You’re just trying to make the thing roll as free as you can and as straight as you can.
Why should people come and see the ASCS National Tour race at Salina?
Hafertepe: It’s a really great place for ASCS to start. It’s right outside Tulsa, where ASCS was born. I wouldn’t say Salina has a lot of (ASCS) history to it, but just being able to race around the Tulsa area to kick off the ASCS season is a huge thing. You can’t pass up a place that has the speed like Salina does. A Sprint Car on a track like that does a lot of amazing things and I think the number one thing that attracts people to Sprint Cars is speed. If you want to see speed, Salina Highbanks is it.
Hahn: We get to showcase the National Tour in Oklahoma, and there’s a lot of good drivers on Tour this year and a bunch of rookies that are looking to go run this year. I think a lot of fans enjoy seeing Sprint Cars. We don’t get a whole lot of Sprint Car racing around here, especially at Salina. I think a lot of fans should show up just to see the high speeds and see what kind of action they produce.
Martin: It’s going to be a Saturday night in the first half of April and there’s probably not a lot going on when the weather’s just now starting to warm up, so that would be a good time to get the family out and see some good racing. It’s one of the fastest places in this part of the country, and you won’t see much better racing.
