By Daryl Turford
Sunnyvale, Texas-The Plumbfast Racing Team and Sam Hafertepe Jr headed to the Tulare Thunderbowl with high hopes following a strong run at Las Vegas. Unfortunately a disastrous Friday night threatened to turn the week sour but Sam and the team persevered and were rewarded with a strong 7th place run on Saturday night.
Sam was 5th fastest in warm-ups but bicycled hard on his first qualifying lap in turns 1 and 2. The second lap would be much worse. As Sam exited turn 2 the rear axle of the Lone Star Speedway #15H broke and sent Sam spinning before he ultimately tipped over lightly on the exit of turn 2.
“I’ve never felt anything like that before,” said Sam following the crash. “At first I thought maybe a torsion stop broke. I’m just glad it didn’t happen when we entered a corner.”
The team along with several helping hands thrashed to put a new rear end in the car and was able to make it out for the heat race. Unfortunately the car wasn’t right and Sam struggled in the 6th position. Hafertepe had one last shot at making the transfer on a restart but couldn’t quite get the job done as the car again bicycled hard in turn 1.
“We changed motors after Vegas and this one just isn’t right,” explained Sam. “We are leaking oil all over the place and it seems to be misfiring.”
The team decided to change motors following the heat race and thrashed to get ready for the B Main. Sam had to start deep in the field but caught a break when an opening lap crash took out several competitors.
Hafertepe restarted in 5th and soon moved into 4th. One lap later however Sam would slip back to 5th as he struggled with the mishandling race car. Sam would catch another break however as the 4th place running car crashed hard in turn 1. Hafertepe would hold off Toni Lutar and Zach Zimmerly without much trouble over the final few laps to safely transfer into the A Feature event.
Sam rolled out for the A Feature in the last row and survived the initial start and moved forward slightly during the first couple of laps before a restart for Steve Kinser. On the restart disaster struck as Terry McCarl spun down the front stretch in front of the field. Hafertepe had nowhere to go and flipped wildly down the front straightaway towards turn 1.
“We really didn’t need that tonight,” explained Sam following the crash. “We knew a lot of cars would get torn up on this track and we weren’t really good so we were just going to try to make laps and take what we could get. Unfortunately we bent this frame and we’ll have to get our back-up car down and see if we can’t bounce back tomorrow night.”
Sam was once again fast in warm-ups as he set the 3rd fastest lap but again struggled in qualifying as he turned a lap that was only good enough for 17th quick.
“I’m not sure why we are so far off,” said Sam following qualifying. “We keep on being really quick in warm-ups but it’s not transferring to time trials. We are going to really throw the kitchen sink at the car though for the rest of the night because there is no way we are going to work as hard as we have this weekend and not get some sort of positive result.”
Sam lined up 6th in a tough heat and was able to get the jump on fellow row 3 starter Danny Lasoski to exit turn 2 in 5th. Hafertepe would try to reel in Donny Schatz for the rest of the heat while he steadily pulled away from the battle for 6th.
Sam and the team once again made several changes for the feature and hoped to continue moving in a positive direction for the feature.
Following some opening lap carnage Sam settled into the 11th position. Hafertepe hunted for a line early trying high and low at both ends of the speedway. On lap 7 Sam switched to the high line only to have a hard charging Steve Kinser drive by on the bottom. Sam held on to the 12th position which he held until a yellow moved him up to 10th.
Hafertepe went to the top side of the speedway only to have Daryn Pittman drive underneath of him. Sam turned back under Pittman and blasted past him down the back straightaway. At this point in the feature Sam settled in on the bottom and began to get faster and faster. Sam soon began to reel in Tommy Tarlton and following a lap 14 restart he was able to move past him on the low side exiting turn 4 to take over 8th.
The second half of the race went non-stop and Sam began once again moving around the track and hunting for a faster line. Towards the last 10 laps Sam began to move in on the 5th-6th and 7th place battle between Jason Sides, Paul McMahan and Steve Kinser.
The foursome battled through traffic and Sam began working both the high and low lines to try to make something happen. Hafertepe had several runs on Kinser but couldn’t quite make the pass. Eventually however Kinser was able to sneak by McMahan and Sam turned his attention to trying to find a way past Paul.
An opportunity finally presented itself with 2 laps to go and Sam was able to capitalize as he drove underneath McMahan in turns 1 and 2. Hafetepe then moved in on Kinser and on the white flag lap he moved inside of Steve in turns 1 and 2. The duo was even exiting turn 2 but Kinser was able to box Sam in behind a lapped car and Sam settled for 7th, his best World of Outlaws finish this season.
“We’re definitely satisfied with 7th,” said Sam following the feature event. “We had to deal with so many problems and to work through them all, not let them get us down and ultimately come home with a top 10 finish says a lot about our team. Mike (Schure) and Daryl (Turford) worked their butts off this week and I’m glad we came through like we did. Friday night is the kind of night that really tests your team. It’s so easy to want to give up after a night like that and you question why you’re even doing what you are doing but then to come back like we did makes it all worth it.”
The team has now headed back home to Texas where they will build a new car and prepare for Sam’s homecoming race at Lone Star Speedway which is owned and promoted by Sam’s father.
“We ran 2nd at Lone Star last year and it was definitely one of the highlights of the season and I’m hoping we can move up 1 spot on the podium this year,” said Sam. “We are going to throw everything at it and hopefully things fall our way.”