Sam Hafertepe Jr. Wins $10,000 in Sweep of The Big One at Belleville
Many open-wheel dirt racing heroes have left their mark on the hallowed grounds of Belleville High Banks. Sam Hafertepe Jr. has now made his as the inaugural winner of 360 Sprint Car racing’s newest special, The Big One.
After claiming victory in the preliminary event Thursday night, the five-time American Sprint Car Series champion from Sunnyvale, TX, dominated Friday’s main event, leading all 25 laps around the historic, half-mile oval to pocket the $10,000 grand prize and his fifth Series victory of the season.
Hafertepe has made only four career starts at Belleville, but he knows of the prestige that comes with winning at the Kansas oval and now has two pieces of it to take home with him after a sweep of the weekend’s events.
“Belleville is so legendary,” Hafertepe said. “Everybody thinks of this place as a thing of the past because there haven’t been a lot of high-profile Sprint Car races like this. If they keep building this, the event could get huge. It really could.”
2023 Series champion Jason Martin was Hafertepe’s biggest competition Thursday night and presented another challenge throughout Friday’s program. After Hafertepe broke Martin’s track record in Qualifying on Thursday, Martin returned fire in Qualifying on Friday and regained the track record with a lap of 15.381.
Following a 1–2 finish in the Honest Abe Roofing Dash, Hafertepe and Martin lined up on the front row of the Feature. Hafertepe jumped out to the early lead, and by the first caution flag on Lap 13, had opened a lead of over two seconds in lapped traffic.
“The only thing that worried me was we hadn’t really got to run the bottom or the middle all night, so we didn’t really know how good we were across the corner out of the good stuff,” Hafertepe said. “Luckily, in the Feature, when we had to go down there, we could go right through the middle and pass lapped cars. I knew once we could do that, I felt like we had it pretty well in-hand.”
Under caution, Hafertepe remained calm and collected with a straightforward plan for the restart to avoid a late challenge from Martin behind him.
“I knew if I got a good run down the hill off of Turns 3–4, I’d have enough speed going into 1 that nobody could slide me,” Hafertepe said. “I felt like we were so good around the top that it would take an act of Congress to get past us.”
In the end, no driver could get close enough to challenge Hafertepe for the lead, and the Hill’s Racing Team No. 15H cruised to the finish line, awarding Hafertepe his 83rd career Series victory.
Hafertepe has given abundant credit to his crew throughout the season, and said Friday was another showcase of their decision-making skills in the pits compared to his competitors.
“I knew [Martin] was gonna be there; it was a thought in my mind,” Hafertepe said. “But I honestly think a lot of guys made a lot of wrong calls for the Feature; I think it caught a lot of guys off-guard. We just didn’t do anything, and I think that was the best thing we could’ve done and it paid off for us.”
By the checkered flag, Martin has slipped back to the third spot after Iowa racer Cameron Martin made the pass on him in lapped traffic. Still, Jason collected his third-straight podium finish, while Cameron notched his best career finish and first-ever Series podium.
Kansas native Bryant Wiedeman crossed the stripe in fourth while Matt Covington completed the top five.
UP NEXT
The American Sprint Car Series continues its 2025 campaign in the Sunflower State of Kansas next Friday–Saturday, July 11–12, at Lakeside Speedway and 81 Speedway.
Tickets for both events 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.
FEATURE RESULTS (view all results)
Feature (25 Laps): 1. 15H-Sam Hafertepe Jr[1]; 2. 4-Cameron Martin[4]; 3. 36-Jason Martin[2]; 4. 1X-Bryant Wiedeman[3]; 5. 95-Matt Covington[5]; 6. 2J-Zach Blurton[6]; 7. 14-Joey Danley[9]; 8. 2B-Garrett Benson[8]; 9. 52-Blake Hahn[14]; 10. 17W-Harli White[7]; 11. 71-Brady Baker[17]; 12. 23S-Stuart Snyder[12]; 13. 10C-Jeremy Campbell[11]; 14. 10-Landon Britt[15]; 15. 16G-Austyn Gossel[16]; 16. 7C-Chris Morgan[22]; 17. 91-Jeff Stasa[19]; 18. 88-Terry Easum[20]; 19. 88C-Brogan Carder[18]; 20. 5D-Zach Daum[23]; 21. 88R-Ryder Laplante[21]; 22. 45X-Kyler Johnson[10]; 23. 88J-Jeremy Huish[13]; 24. (DNS) 3D-Jake Diehl
