By Spence Smithback
CRANDALL, TX (October 26, 2024) – The last two months of Sam Hafertepe Jr.’s season on the American Sprint Car Series National Tour have been a series of one headache after another.
Crashes. Tire failures. Engine trouble. Everything that could go wrong did go wrong until Saturday night at RPM Speedway, when Hafertepe finally made his way back to Victory Lane on the National Tour. And while winning for the first time in a while is special under any circumstances, doing it just 30 miles from his Sunnyvale, TX home with his family in attendance made the occasion even sweeter.
“Definitely awesome to do it close to home,” Hafertepe said following his first Series win since Lincoln County Raceway on Aug. 17. “I drive 20, 30 minutes home and I get to sleep in my own bed tonight.”
Hafertepe began the Feature from the outside of Row 2 with Blake Hahn and Brenham Crouch leading the charge on the front row. Hahn took command early riding the top lane and held the top spot throughout the opening green flag run that ended when Bradley Fezard spun in Turn 1 just before halfway.
While the field was split fairly evenly between the top and bottom grooves in the first half of the Feature, the majority of the field migrated to the top following the caution – including the top three. That gave Hafertepe the opportunity to begin moving forward, and he did just that by riding the inside around Crouch shortly after the restart before setting his sights on Hank Davis, who had climbed up to second.
After two more quick cautions, Hafertepe went to work on Davis while Hahn led on the high lane, eventually sliding into second with 11 laps left to catch Hahn. However, a caution for Aydan Saunders colliding with an infield tractor tire in Turn 2 put Hafertepe right on Hahn’s rear bumper for the dash to the finish.
With three circuits remaining, Hafertepe pulled the same move he made on Davis earlier in the race, blew past Hahn on the bottom and set sail toward his 10th National Tour win of the season.
While the unmatchable speed of the No. 15H on the bottom lane looked to be his key to victory, Hafertepe said there was a little more to the story.
“I don’t think we were better than anybody on the bottom, I just think the patience it was going to take to get down on the bottom, a lot of guys didn’t realize how slow you had to go to hit it,” Hafertepe said. “I knew if I took the lead, if a guy went and tried to hit the bottom he would probably mess up for a couple laps trying to figure it out.”
While Hafertepe would need a miracle to make up his 156-point gap in the Drivers standings to Seth Bergman with four races remaining in the season, he’s only 50 points behind TwoC Racing in the race for the Owners title. That means Hafertepe still has plenty to compete for at Tulsa Speedway and Creek County Speedway on championship weekend, and he’ll do so with a car he’s still fine tuning to his liking.
“We’ve still got to do a little bit to this car, this is a car we brought down a couple weeks ago for Paducah,” Hafertepe said. “It’s lacking a few things, we’ve just got to get it back to the shop and keep working on a few things. We’ve been having to do some stuff that we shouldn’t have to do. We’ll get it back to the shop and hopefully get it tuned up for Tulsa and Creek here at the end of the year.”
Hahn looked to be on his way to his first National Tour win since last year at Boone County Raceway, but the two-time Series champion was forced to settle for second after he was unable to hold off Hafertepe’s late charge.
“We were just really good early and just kind of faded with the car toward the end of the race, where I think maybe Sam wasn’t the best early but really started to gain toward the end,” Hahn said. “Just one of those deals, maybe just a little too good early. But our car was good all night long, I still felt good even though Sam got by me, I just think he was a little bit better on the bottom, he was able to operate and move around a little more. Other than that, the car was good, made a lot of good improvements. We’re happy with that, obviously wanted to win but we’ll take second anytime.”
Davis held off late attacks from Bergman and Jason Martin to finish third and claim his second podium of the weekend and his 11th of the season, more than anyone not named Seth or Sam.
“Wayne [Johnson]’s the best coach in the pit area, the best crew chief in the pit area, and my guys just work hard,” Davis said. “We do pretty decent, and hopefully it’ll turn into something next year.”
Martin got back in the top five for the first time since Benton Speedway with his fourth-place finish, while Matt Covington came home fifth for his second-straight top-five effort.
Bergman faded back to seventh after briefly challenging for a spot on the podium, but the points leader still earned the Hard Charger Award thanks to his drive forward from 15th on the starting grid.
UP NEXT: The 2024 ASCS National Tour season concludes in three weeks with four races in three nights in the Tulsa area – beginning with a double-Feature program at Tulsa Speedway on Thursday, Nov. 14 before the two-night finale at Creek County Speedway on Friday and Saturday, Nov. 15-16. Tickets will be available at the track on race day, but if you can’t make it, catch every lap live on DIRTVision.
Feature (30 Laps): 1. 15H-Sam Hafertepe Jr[4]; 2. 52-Blake Hahn[1]; 3. 2C-Hank Davis[3]; 4. 36-Jason Martin[10]; 5. 95-Matt Covington[11]; 6. 1-Brenham Crouch[2]; 7. 23-Seth Bergman[15]; 8. 15D-Andrew Deal[8]; 9. 2J-Zach Blurton[13]; 10. 10-Landon Britt[5]; 11. 45X-Kyler Johnson[6]; 12. 71T-Channin Tankersley[18]; 13. 88-Terry Easum[17]; 14. 2-Brekton Crouch[9]; 15. 31-Casey Wills[22]; 16. 16G-Austyn Gossel[7]; 17. 88R-Ryder Laplante[20]; 18. 8-Aydan Saunders[12]; 19. B2-Carson Bolden[14]; 20. 938-Bradley Fezard[21]; 21. 71-Brady Baker[19]; 22. 2S-Colby Stubblefield[16]