By Spence Smithback
NORTH PLATTE, NE (August 17, 2024) – Saturday night at Lincoln County Raceway, Sam Hafertepe Jr. proved that he didn’t need to start at the front to finish there.
The five-time champion drove up from the third row of the lineup to take his ninth American Sprint Car Series National Tour victory of the season and the 74th of his illustrious career with the Series.
“It’s hard to win from the back when the track’s not wide and slick, but tonight we got a track that was wide and slick,” Hafertepe said. “I honestly felt like when the track does get like this, it kind of suits us a little bit better.”
Hafertepe drew the sixth starting spot for the night’s Dash, and was only able to pass one car in the five-lap event. That meant the two rows ahead of him to start the Feature included his primary rival in the championship chase, Seth Bergman, as well as three drivers hungry for their first win of the season in Zach Blurton, Matt Covington and Hank Davis.
On the start, Hafertepe blasted past Bergman and split the difference between Davis and Covington through Turns 1 and 2. Covington snuck away to take second behind polesitter Blurton, while Hafertepe took third away from Davis off Turn 4 on the opening lap.
From there, Hafertepe began plotting his attack on the second spot. A strong run off the bottom exiting Turn 4 put him on Covington’s inside, and he completed the pass at the opposite end of the track.
While Hafertepe went to work on hunting down Blurton, Covington had the No. 23 of Bergman to deal with and contact with the slower car of Fred Holz was all Bergman needed to take over the third spot.
Blurton’s pace began to slow once he made it deeper into slower traffic, which allowed Hafertepe to reel him in and power to his inside off Turn 2 to take command of the race. Moments later, Bergman mimicked the move in Turn 3 to send Blurton back to third.
“I felt like I showed the bottom was pretty good in 3 and 4,” Hafertepe said. “And [Blurton] tried to take it away, he just wasn’t patient enough to really hit it good.”
The 18-lap green flag run to start the race ended when Davis stalled in Turn 4. The yellow gave Bergman and Blurton a chance to pounce on Hafertepe, but the opportunity evaporated when Hafertepe powered away to a five-car-length lead in Turn 1 on the restart.
Seven laps later, Brandon Anderson suffered a flat left-rear tire while running seventh and the second caution of the race was thrown. The forthcoming restart was a carbon copy of the first, as Hafertepe left the field in the dust once more and ripped the cushion for five laps to take the win along with the Hard Charger Award.
“If you get in dirty air behind a guy like Seth that can keep speed, it would be hard for me to ever get around him in a race,” Hafertepe said. “I think just making the moves we made early really showed how good we were. And it was needed, because if I didn’t make those moves early, we might not have won the race.”
Bergman’s runner-up finish was enough to carry an 83-point advantage into Big Sky Speedway next weekend. While he’s confident about his title chances, a ninth race without a win has his desire to return to Victory Lane at an all-time high.
“We’ve got to get our act together a little bit and start winning, if you win all the races, you’re going to win the championship,” Bergman said. “We need to get back in that Winner’s Circle. I’m going to keep my head high. We’re very competitive and back to running on the podium every night, and if we can eliminate those few bad nights we had we’ll be alright.”
While Blurton looked like the class of the field in the early stages, the No. 15H car proved to be too much to handle. Nevertheless, his first podium of the season completely shifted his mindset towards the rest of the season.
“I was done after this weekend,” Blurton said. “I was going to go do other stuff, not go to Montana and just give it up. This totally changed it. I’ve got people that back me and believe in me, and that makes everything a lot easier. A weekend like this for sure helps.”
Covington held onto the fourth spot for his second top five of the weekend, while Andrew Deal finished fifth to collect his first top five since the Speedweek finale at Tri-State Speedway.
UP NEXT: The National Tour will visit Montana for the first time since 2021, and the two-week swing will kick off Aug. 23-24 at Big Sky Speedway with the $12,012-to-win Harvey Ostermiller Memorial. Tickets are available for purchase in advance here or at the track on race day, while those unable to make it can catch every lap live on DIRTVision.
Feature (30 Laps): 1. 15H-Sam Hafertepe Jr[5]; 2. 23-Seth Bergman[4]; 3. 2J-Zach Blurton[1]; 4. 95-Matt Covington[2]; 5. 15D-Andrew Deal[7]; 6. 36-Jason Martin[6]; 7. 10-Landon Britt[10]; 8. 16G-Austyn Gossel[9]; 9. 45X-Kyler Johnson[13]; 10. 88-Terry Easum[8]; 11. 55B-Brandon Anderson[12]; 12. 938-Bradley Fezard[11]; 13. 74-Zack Merritt[16]; 14. 32-Blair Cooper[17]; 15. 66-Fred Holz[18]; 16. 91-Michael Day[14]; 17. 2C-Hank Davis[3]; 18. 4S-Adam Speckman[15]