Fuzzy's Fall Fling

Fuzzy’s Fall Fling brings the nation’s best 360 Sprint Car drivers to the forefront for one final moment in the spotlight at Creek County Speedway, and it has yet to disappoint.

Saturday’s season finale for the American Sprint Car Series (ASCS) and ASCS Sooner Region featured the crowning of Sam Hafertepe Jr. with a history-making sixth national Series championship, and Zach Daum with his first career national Series Feature win.

Fittingly, the 40-lap main event came down to the two open-wheel veterans, battling it out for the top spot in pursuit of the $10,000 grand prize.

While Hafertepe started inside Row 2 and stayed inside the top-five the entire race, Daum started his march to the front from seventh on the starting grid. By the halfway point, Daum had advanced all the way to third, using his preferred bottom lane around Creek County’s 1/4-mile confines.

Out front, Hafertepe was stalking race leader Blake Hahn in lapped traffic and later made the pass on the No. 52 for the lead, slipping by in the middle groove of Turns 3 and 4 on Lap 23.

Now in control of the field, Hafertepe looked to drive away to victory on the top. Behind him was Daum, who took the runner-up spot from Hahn before the caution flag flew on Lap 27. One lap after the restart, Daum took his shot at the lead, pulling up alongside Hafertepe on the bottom down the backstretch and beating the No. 15H back to the flag stand to take the lead on Lap 29.

Hafertepe retook the lead at the line on Lap 30, but Daum came back on the bottom and beat Hafertepe to the line once more on Lap 31. Daum soon began to pull away from the pack and led the field back around to the checkered flag to secure his first career American Sprint Car Series Feature win — one of the biggest in his career.

“I’m happy to excel at where I feel like my program is,” Daum, 34, of Pocahontas, IL, said. “Half-mile guys go run Knoxville and Eldora and those sorts of places, and short track guys go to short tracks. I’m happy to do this. I’m happy to win, for one.

“To drive by the caliber of cars we drove by tonight and have a game plan and stick with it, and read the racetrack all night, I thought I was on top of it.”

Daum has long been an established name in the open-wheel dirt world for his accomplishments in Non-Winged cars, having won four national Midget championships in his career. He’s become a contender around the Midwest with the wing on as well, with four wins in MOWA Sprint Car Series competition and the 2021 Series championship. But with only 13 previous national ASCS main event starts and two top-10 finishes to his name, Daum had to give a masterful performance to beat ASCS’s best in their homeland.

What’s more — he made the 450-plus-mile tow from Illinois to Oklahoma to compete in his second Fall Fling with zero crew help. But it paid off in the end.

“I know these wins are a little bit sweeter when you do everything yourself,” Daum said. “I do the motor maintenance; we build our own engines. We basically do everything in-house. Do it all in-house and go race by yourself; it’s cool. It’s especially satisfying to me, more than anything.

“You know that what you’re doing is right. What you’re working toward all week. What you’re trying to accomplish is worth it in the end.”

While Hafertepe slipped back to third on the final lap, his showing in the event was more than enough to secure an unprecedented sixth national ASCS championship. In hoisting the Emmett Hahn Trophy, he breaks the tie between he and the late Jason Johnson for most national ASCS titles all-time. His team at Hill’s Racing also secure their fifth owner’s championship after pairing with Hafertepe in 2018.

Six titles puts Hafertepe, 40, of Sunnyvale, TX, above all others in season-long Series history. But that hasn’t satisfied his hunger for domination.

“I’m excited about it and I’m happy about it, but I don’t know if six is enough for me,” Hafertepe said. “I don’t know if it’s, ‘I got to six and I’m happy and I’m content.’ We dominated for so long with this series when we ran it that… even last year, I felt like we dominated and just had bad luck and lost the championship.

“Six is just one more than another guy. In everybody’s world, the value of six ASCS national championships in this time period might be different to different people. What I take with me is, I beat the best people I could when I raced with them. And that’s all you can do.”

Polesitter Matt Sherrell came back on the last lap and overtook Hafertepe to finish second. Kansas native Andrew Deal charged from 11th to finish fourth, while ninth-starting Seth Bergman completed the top five.

ABBREVIATED RESULTS (view full results)

Feature (40 Laps): 1. 5D-Zach Daum[7]; 2. 23X-Matt Sherrell[2]; 3. 15H-Sam Hafertepe Jr[3]; 4. 15D-Andrew Deal[11]; 5. 23-Seth Bergman[9]; 6. 52-Blake Hahn[5]; 7. 2B-Garrett Benson[1]; 8. 95-Matt Covington[8]; 9. 938-Bradley Fezard[16]; 10. 7F-Joshua Tyre[13]; 11. 36-Jason Martin[15]; 12. 22C-Blake Edwards[19]; 13. 2J-Zach Blurton[26]; 14. 10-Landon Britt[18]; 15. 88-Terry Easum[17]; 16. 21G-Garth Kasiner[6]; 17. 16G-Austyn Gossel[23]; 18. 26M-Fred Mattox[20]; 19. 45X-Kyler Johnson[25]; 20. 50Z-Zach Chappell[12]; 21. 88R-Ryder Laplante[24]; 22. 1-Sean McClelland[4]; 23. 31-Casey Wills[14]; 24. 23H-Sam Henderson[22]; 25. 2-Chase Porter[21]; 26. 11A-Kaleb Montgomery[10]