Sam Hafertepe Jr. Wins Salina, Ties Jason Johnson for Second-Most Wins All-Time
Seventy-nine wins may not be the typical, even-numbered milestone commonly celebrated in sports, but for Sam Hafertepe Jr., it’s one of the biggest he’s reached. His Feature win Saturday night at Salina Highbanks Speedway tied him with the late Jason Johnson for second-most in American Sprint Car Series (ASCS) National Tour history.
Hafertepe, the 39-year-old five-time Tour champion from Sunnyvale, TX, dominated the main event — co-sanctioned by the ASCS Sooner Region — leading flag-to-flag for his 79th career Tour victory and second of his career at Salina over Seth Bergman and Sean McClelland.
The win holds great significance for Hafertepe as a driver and for the Hill’s Racing Team, who has had Hafertepe in the seat of the Townland Variety No. 15H since 2018, winning 49 Tour races since joining forces. Hafertepe and Johnson competed against each other full-time on the National Tour in 2014 — the year of Johnson’s last ASCS championship and his final full-time season in the 360 ranks before committing to the full World of Outlaws NOS Energy Drink Sprint Car Series schedule the following year.
Now, their names both sit tied in the all-time ASCS record books in multiple categories — most Feature wins and National Tour championships (5).
“Any time you can put your name in the same sentence as a Hall-of-Famer, you’re doing something right,” Hafertepe said. “Gary Wright, he’s quite a far ways away, I think he’s got like [128]. It’s pretty cool just to have your name amongst those guys. There’s not a lot of better guys to do it than in the 360 ranks.
“I think we’re tied with Jason in championships, and now I guess we’re tied with him in wins, so that’s pretty neat.”
After winning the Honest Abe Roofing Dash, Hafertepe lined up for the 25-lap Feature on the inside of the front row next to defending Tour champion Seth Bergman. The green flag dropped, and after a few tries at the initial start due to various incidents further back in the field, Hafertepe was able to get the jump on Bergman and win the race for the lead into Turn 1 on the opening lap.
Hafertepe kept it in the preferred bottom lane throughout the race, never once slipping from out of the groove and giving his competition a chance to make a move. Still, he had his reservations, especially on the restarts.
“When you get in a situation like that, you don’t really go hard because you don’t want to catch lapped traffic too fast and you don’t want to burn your tires up,” Hafertepe said. “You just try to manage, and that’s what we did. I don’t know how far out we were on them; I just focus on my pace, what I felt like my tires needed, and that’s what we did.”
Bergman settled into second and gave chase the entire race but was never able to come up with the speed he needed to seriously challenge Hafertepe. The Washington racer crossed the finish line second for his third consecutive runner-up finish this year, going back two weeks prior to his two second-place results with the ASCS Sooner Region at Creek County Speedway and Enid Speedway.
“It was key to start on the bottom to get the start, and then [Hafertepe] found it just as quick as I did, got where he needed to be, and that was it,” Bergman said. “From that point on, it was just tire management, making sure you were gonna have a tire at the end.”
Five-time ASCS Sooner Region champion Sean McClelland completed the podium after starting fourth and chasing the two leaders the entire race. Two-time Tour champion Blake Hahn climbed from eighth to finish fourth, while Matt Covington drove from 10th on the starting grid to complete the top-five.
Kyler Johnson turned the fastest Qualifying lap with a time of 13.764.
Seth Bergman, Sean McClelland, Caleb Saiz and Sam Hafertepe Jr., were the Heat Race winners.
The Honest Abe Roofing Dash was won by Sam Hafertepe Jr. and Kyle Clark won the Smith Titanium Last Chance Showdown.
UP NEXT
The ASCS National Tour returns to action Friday–Saturday, April 25–26 at RPM Speedway in Crandall, TX. Tickets for the event will be sold at the track on race day. If you can’t be there, stream every lap live on DIRTVision.
ABBREVIATED RESULTS (view full results)
Feature (25 Laps): 1. 15H-Sam Hafertepe Jr[1]; 2. 23-Seth Bergman[2]; 3. 1-Sean McClelland[4]; 4. 52-Blake Hahn[8]; 5. 95-Matt Covington[10]; 6. 26M-Fred Mattox[18]; 7. 14M-Jordon Mallett[13]; 8. 45X-Kyler Johnson[19]; 9. 10-Landon Britt[23]; 10. 2J-Zach Blurton[9]; 11. 16G-Austyn Gossel[22]; 12. 7M-Chance Morton[6]; 13. 88K-Jordan Knight[11]; 14. 2B-Garrett Benson[15]; 15. 17W-Harli White[20]; 16. 2W-Whit Gastineau[3]; 17. 8-Alex Sewell[12]; 18. 22C-Blake Edwards[21]; 19. 42-Caleb Saiz[5]; 20. 9$-Kyle Clark[17]; 21. 15D-Andrew Deal[14]; 22. 36-Jason Martin[7]; 23. 6G-Bryan Gossel[16]
