From Inside Line Promotions
Kilgore, TX — (October 12, 2015) — Sam Hafertepe Jr. accomplished a special feat last Saturday when he scored his first career win at Lonestar Speedway, which is a high-banked track his family owns.
“I’ve ran modified races there,” he said. “I’ve ran a handful of sprint car races and I’d never won a feature there. So that was pretty cool to do that.”
Hafertepe Jr. and his car owner Keith Dobbs kicked off the ASCS Red River Region event by starting at the back of a heat race.
“We drew pretty bad for the heat, but we passed just enough cars to make the redraw,” Hafertepe Jr. said. “We were the last car into the redraw. We ended up getting the six, which was better than the eight.”
Hafertepe Jr., who charged from seventh to fourth place during his heat race, pulled the No. 6 during the random feature redraw. That lined him up on the outside of the third row for the 25-lap main event.
“In the feature the track got a lot wider,” he said. “We were able to run across the track. You could run high and you could run low. The track was pretty abrasive on tires, but you could run all the way across it.
“On the start guys left a gap through the middle and I shot the gap. We were running third going into turn one. I hunted down (Shawn) Petersen for two laps and then I reeled the leader down. He messed up off turn two and went high and I got by him. When we got to traffic I took my time and got through it really good.”
Hafertepe Jr. took over the lead approximately a half-dozen laps into the feature and he never looked back en route to his fifth triumph of the season.
“I wasn’t trying to push it real hard because the track was hard on tires,” he said. “Whenever I needed to punch it to get around a lapped car we were good enough to pass them at will.”
Hafertepe Jr. and Dobbs will compete this Friday and Saturday at Devil’s Bowl Speedway in Mesquite, Texas, for the 42nd annual Winter Nationals with the Lucas Oil ASCS National Tour. It will mark the first time the duo has competed at the half-mile track together.
“Any race at Devil’s Bowl is highlighted on my schedule,” Hafertepe Jr. said. “It’s so close to home and a place I enjoy racing at. Every time we go to Devil’s Bowl we feel like we have a shot to win no matter if we’ve had a rough season or not. The way we’ve been running with this car we feel we can go anywhere and win races. The car is responding to anything we do to it and we’re making good decisions. Everything is clicking like it should be.”