LAWTON, Okla. (June 14, 2017) — Sam Hafertepe, Jr. continues to show no signs of slowing down as the Keith Dobbs Motorsports No. 15h unmercifully dominated Wednesday’s Lucas Oil American Sprint Car Series National Tour presented by the MAVTV Motorsports Network Speedweek stop at the Lawton Speedway.
“This thing was awesome,” said Sam of his seventh National Tour score of 2017. “I don’t care if we win it by five seconds, or a tenth of a second, as long as we get the “W”, that’s all the really matters and when a car is as good as this, it’s fun because you can take you time and be smooth rather than rip it too hard.”
Referencing his 5.291 second advantage at the drop of the checkered flag, Hafertepe was challenged once during the 25 lap feature event with Justin Henderson leading the field through the first two turns, before slamming the wall off the fourth turn as Sam rolled by for the lead.
“I knew he [Henderson] was going to be running hard there to and stay ahead of us. I got a good run off turn-two on the top and just decided to drive in real hard on him and see how hard he’d run it, and he just went a little too hard and hit the wall. We’ve run here a lot and it usually goes away coming off of four so if I pressured him, that might happen but I didn’t expect him to slam the wall like that,” said Hafertepe of the opening lap battle.
Single file on a Lap 2 restart, the green was short lived with no laps completed. Having gone into the work area with a flat right rear, Justin Henderson made it back to competition with Wayne Johnson and Blake Hahn also having to work on their machines.
Green for four more rotations, the caution again blinked on for a pair of cars stopped atop the second turn. Slowed once more near the race’s half way point, Hafertepe quickly put distance over the field on every restart.
Working traffic with less than 10 laps to run, the advantage for the No. 15h stated at roughly a straightaway as the race from third through fifth saw Josh Baughman, Jason Barney, and 18th starting Aaron Reutzel trade slide-jobs and three wide passes several times before Reutzel moved to the show position. Tracking down second running Alex Sewell, the closing laps advanced Aaron to the runner-up spot for the night’s CP-Carrillo Hard Charger of the Night. Aaron also jumped from fifth in tour standings to third.
Side by side at the line, Josh Baughman edged Sewell for third as the pair made contact at the line with Alex tipping over to draw the red flag. With the leader taking the checkered flag, the race was official with the finish split between the four drivers who crossed and the running order on the white flag lap.
Channin Tankersley, with a fresh engine under the hood, moved up two spots to fifth with Jason Barney ending his night sixth. Coming from 14th, El Paso’s John Carney II advanced to seventh with Johnny Herrera eighth. Matt Covington and Joe Wood, Jr. completed the top-ten.
The appearance of 41 drivers at the Lawton Speedway saw five Heat Races going to Jason McDougal, Dustin Morgan, Brad Queen, Alex Sewell, and Josh Baughman. The 40 plus car field brought about Qualifiers which were topped by Channin Tankersley, Wayne Johnson, and Sam Hafertepe, Jr. A pair of B-Features went Skylar Gee and Aaron Reutzel. Three Provisionals were used by Harli White, Kyle Bellm, and Jared Sewell.
The Lucas Oil American Sprint Car Series presented by the MAVTV Motorsports Networks rolls to Round 5 of the ASCS Sizzlin’ Summer Speedweek on Thursday, June 15 at Creek County Speedway in Sapulpa, Okla. Racing begins at 8:00 P.M. (CDT).
For continued updates on the American Sprint Car Series, from the National Tour to any of the seven reginal tours that make up the ASCS Nation, log onto http://www.ascsracing.com.
Race Results:
Lucas Oil ASCS National Tour / ASCS Red River Region
Lawton Speedway – Lawton, Okla.
Wednesday, June 14, 2017
Speedweek Round 4
Car Count: 41
Heat Races: (Top 30 in Passing Points advance to Qualifiers)
Heat 1 (8 Laps): 1. 11M-Jason McDougal, [2]; 2. 31-Casey Wills, [4]; 3. 52-Blake Hahn, [8]; 4. 20G-Jake Greider, [1]; 5. 25-Shane Sellers, [3]; 6. 86-Tony Bruce Jr, [6]; 7. 83-Chris Solomon, [7]; 8. 3-Brian Gramm, [5]; 9. 11-Nick Bates, [9]
Heat 2 (8 Laps): 1. 93-Dustin Morgan, [1]; 2. 87B-Jason Barney, [3]; 3. 8M-Kade Morton, [2]; 4. 23-Seth Bergman, [4]; 5. 87-Aaron Reutzel, [5]; 6. 26M-Fred Mattox, [6]; 7. 17W-Harli White, [7]; 8. 58-Gary Floyd, [8]
Heat 3 (8 Laps): 1. 55-Brad Queen, [2]; 2. 45X-Johnny Herrera, [3]; 3. 03-Joe Wood Jr, [8]; 4. 99-Skylar Gee, [5]; 5. 44-Jared Sewell, [4]; 6. (DNF) 84B-Scott Bogucki, [6]; 7. (DNF) 7M-Chance Morton, [7]; 8. (DNF) 45-Martin Edwards, [1]
Heat 4 (8 Laps): 1. 8-Alex Sewell, [1]; 2. 1-Justin Henderson, [4]; 3. 15H-Sam Hafertepe Jr, [5]; 4. 9$-Kyle Clark, [2]; 5. 95-Matt Covington, [8]; 6. 11X-John Carney II, [7]; 7. 14K-Kyle Bellm, [3]; 8. 10K-Kyle Ezell, [6]
Heat 5 (8 Laps): 1. 17-Josh Baughman, [2]; 2. 02-Brandon Long, [1]; 3. 2C-Wayne Johnson, [3]; 4. 5-Joe Bob Lee, [6]; 5. 17G-Channin Tankersley, [8]; 6. 2X-Tucker Doughty, [5]; 7. 7-Paul Solomon, [4]; 8. (DNF) 98-Ryan Padgett, [7]
Hoosier Tire Qualifiers (Top 16 advance to the A-Feature):
Qualifier 1 (8 Laps): 1. 17G-Channin Tankersley, [1]; 2. 1-Justin Henderson, [4]; 3. 87B-Jason Barney, [3]; 4. 52-Blake Hahn, [6]; 5. 11X-John Carney II, [9]; 6. 99-Skylar Gee, [7]; 7. 26M-Fred Mattox, [10]; 8. 02-Brandon Long, [2]; 9. 20G-Jake Greider, [8]; 10. 55-Brad Queen, [5]
Qualifier 2 (8 Laps): 1. 2C-Wayne Johnson, [1]; 2. 45X-Johnny Herrera, [3]; 3. 17-Josh Baughman, [5]; 4. 5-Joe Bob Lee, [2]; 5. 93-Dustin Morgan, [4]; 6. 03-Joe Wood Jr, [6]; 7. 87-Aaron Reutzel, [8]; 8. 84B-Scott Bogucki, [10]; 9. 23-Seth Bergman, [7]; 10. 25-Shane Sellers, [9]
Qualifier 3 (8 Laps): 1. 15H-Sam Hafertepe Jr, [3]; 2. 8-Alex Sewell, [4]; 3. 95-Matt Covington, [2]; 4. 8M-Kade Morton, [1]; 5. 9$-Kyle Clark, [7]; 6. 2X-Tucker Doughty, [10]; 7. 44-Jared Sewell, [8]; 8. (DNF) 11M-Jason McDougal, [6]; 9. (DNF) 31-Casey Wills, [5]; 10. (DNF) 86-Tony Bruce Jr, [9]
BMRS B-Main (Top 3 from each advance to the A-Feature):
B Feature 1 (12 Laps): 1. 99-Skylar Gee, [1]; 2. 23-Seth Bergman, [5]; 3. 26M-Fred Mattox, [3]; 4. 14K-Kyle Bellm, [9]; 5. 2X-Tucker Doughty, [2]; 6. 45-Martin Edwards, [11]; 7. 3-Brian Gramm, [10]; 8. 55-Brad Queen, [4]; 9. 7M-Chance Morton, [8]; 10. 25-Shane Sellers, [6]; 11. (DNF) 83-Chris Solomon, [7]; (DNS) 02-Brandon Long, ; (DNS) 98-Ryan Padgett,
B Feature 2 (12 Laps): 1. 87-Aaron Reutzel, [3]; 2. 11M-Jason McDougal, [1]; 3. 86-Tony Bruce Jr, [7]; 4. 84B-Scott Bogucki, [5]; 5. 17W-Harli White, [8]; 6. 31-Casey Wills, [2]; 7. 44-Jared Sewell, [4]; 8. 7-Paul Solomon, [9]; 9. 20G-Jake Greider, [6]; 10. 58-Gary Floyd, [10]; 11. 10K-Kyle Ezell, [11]; 12. (DNF) 11-Nick Bates, [12]
Protect the Harvest A-Feature:
A Feature (25 Laps): 1. 15H-Sam Hafertepe Jr, [2]; 2. 87-Aaron Reutzel, [18]; 3. 17-Josh Baughman, [4]; 4. 8-Alex Sewell, [3]; 5. 17G-Channin Tankersley, [7]; 6. 87B-Jason Barney, [9]; 7. 11X-John Carney II, [14]; 8. 45X-Johnny Herrera, [6]; 9. 95-Matt Covington, [11]; 10. 03-Joe Wood Jr, [10]; 11. 99-Skylar Gee, [17]; 12. 23-Seth Bergman, [19]; 13. 86-Tony Bruce Jr, [22]; 14. 52-Blake Hahn, [5]; 15. 17W-Harli White, [24]; 16. 14K-Kyle Bellm, [23]; 17. 2C-Wayne Johnson, [8]; 18. 8M-Kade Morton, [15]; 19. 1-Justin Henderson, [1]; 20. 11M-Jason McDougal, [20]; 21. 26M-Fred Mattox, [21]; 22. 44-Jared Sewell, [25]; 23. 93-Dustin Morgan, [12]; 24. 5-Joe Bob Lee, [13]; 25. 9$-Kyle Clark, [16]
Lap Leader(s): Sam Hafertepe, Jr. 1-25
CP-Carrillo Hard Charger: Aaron Reutzel +16
FSR High Point Driver: Justin Henderson
Provisional(s): Kyle Bellm / Harli White / Jared Sewell (Regional)