Hafertepe Jr. Earns Second-Straight Don Swope Classic Victory at Creek County
Sam Hafertepe Jr. is one of the best 360 Sprint Car drivers in the country anywhere he goes, but nowhere does that ring true more than Sapulpa, OK.
Friday night was Hafertepe’s eighth appearance at Creek County Speedway since the start of 2024 and his fifth win during that span. Three of those have come against the American Sprint Car Series, including back-to-back editions of the Don Swope Classic.
The five-time Series champion led the field to green thanks to his Honest Abe Roofing Dash victory and edged in front of Sean McClelland to slot into the early lead. The ASCS Sooner Region points leader held strong in second ahead of the National Tour travelers in the opening laps until Blake Hahn slipped by on the bottom and into the runner-up position.
Hahn has 1.8 seconds to make up to Hafertepe when he got to second on Lap 6, but that margin was washed away when Brady Baker went over the banking in Turn 1 to bring out the first caution of the night two laps later.
Hafertepe wasn’t going to give Hahn the opportunity to pounce though, as he nailed the restart and immediately put a second between himself and the field.
Another yellow came out two laps prior to halfway for the spinning car of Austyn Gossel, giving Hahn and the rest of the frontrunners another shot at Hafertepe. After spending most of the first half on the cushion in the same lane as Hafertepe, Hahn went low on the restart to try and counter the No. 15H but had nothing for him.
Hahn’s next mission was to put himself in position to capitalize on any slip-ups by Hafertepe once he caught slower traffic, which comes into play quickly around the tight 1/4-mile. There were no such mistakes though, as Hafertepe sliced and diced his way through the field while keeping his nose clean and Hahn behind him.
Hafertepe looked to have the trophy in the bag until two to go, when Baker took a tumble to set up a dash to the checkered flag. One more solid restart by Hafertepe put him out of reach for Hahn to try a Hail Mary, and he rode the cushion for two more circuits on his way to his sixth Series win of 2025.
While Hahn was never able to take over the top spot, Hafertepe admitted he was close enough to keep him on his toes all race long.
“Honestly, it was kind of the most worrisome race I’ve ran, Blake’s so good around here,” Hafertepe said. “I started to get tight in a lot of areas, beating the hell out of the wall down the back chute. I was like ‘man, if I keep doing that, Blake’s going to get by us, we’re going to knock the ladder out or something.’ At this place, you can’t ever count Blake out, he’s so good here. He’s a smart racer, and I just knew at the end, I was like ‘man, I’m going to slow down a little, try not to get tight.’ I don’t know if it was better or not, but we got the win and that’s all that matters.”
Hahn’s runner-up effort was his third-straight National Tour podium at Creek County dating back to his win on the opening night of last November’s Fuzzy’s Fall Fling, and he believes he was only a few well-placed lap cars away from two wins in three starts.
“Feel like we had a really good car maybe to contend for the win, just didn’t have the lap traffic fall exactly how I needed it to,” Hahn said. “These races are won through traffic, to be able to get to traffic, you’ve got to be able to roll through them good. I just got caught up by a couple guys and was able to let Sam get away from me there. With the track being so top-dominant, it was just really hard to get by.”
Matt Covington drove from seventh to third for his third podium of the year as he continues to try to make 2025 the sixth multi-win season of his career with the Series.
“We were good in the Feature, the car was pretty comfortable,” Covington said. “I didn’t like seeing Blake go to the bottom on the last restart because that’s kind of where I wanted to be, I had passed some cars down there. It’s tough to beat the 52 and the 15H about anywhere we go, so we’re not complaining with third.”
Alex Sewell was the highest-finishing Sooner Region regular in fourth, while Kyle Clark came home fifth for his second National Tour top five.
UP NEXT: The American Sprint Car Series heads east for the next two stops of the season at Windy Hollow Speedway (Friday, July 25) and Benton Speedway (Saturday, July 26). Tickets for Windy Hollow are available in advance by clicking here, while tickets will be available at the gate on Saturday at Benton.
If you can’t make it to the track, stream every lap live on DIRTVision.
Feature (30 Laps): 1. 15H-Sam Hafertepe Jr[1]; 2. 52-Blake Hahn[3]; 3. 95-Matt Covington[7]; 4. 8-Alex Sewell[4]; 5. 9$-Kyle Clark[12]; 6. 2B-Garrett Benson[5]; 7. 1-Sean McClelland[2]; 8. 8R-Ryker Pace[9]; 9. 71T-Christopher Townsend[10]; 10. 88R-Ryder Laplante[18]; 11. 17W-Harli White[8]; 12. 88-Terry Easum[16]; 13. 45X-Kyler Johnson[19]; 14. 10-Landon Britt[13]; 15. 15D-Andrew Deal[21]; 16. 16G-Austyn Gossel[24]; 17. 29-Emilio Hoover[20]; 18. 2J-Zach Blurton[11]; 19. 42-Caleb Saiz[25]; 20. 17-Connor Lee[17]; 21. 26M-Fred Mattox[15]; 22. 36-Jason Martin[23]; 23. 71-Brady Baker[22]; 24. 5S-Danny Smith[14]; 25. 16S-Steven Shebester[6]
