Hafertepe Jr. Sweeps the Weekend with Lincoln County Triumph

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]

Hafertepe Jr. Sweeps Dodge City for Eighth National Tour Win of 2024

DODGE CITY, KS (August 16, 2024) – Several of Sam Hafertepe Jr.’s first seven wins of 2024 with the American Sprint Car Series National Tour came in dominant fashion, but never was his stranglehold on the field as tight as it was Friday night at Dodge City Raceway Park.

The Sunnyvale, TX driver’s gap to second place was more than six seconds when he took the checkers for the eighth time in 2024 and second at the Kansas 3/8-mile.

“You hit a place several times, and your notebook just gets bigger and bigger,” Hafertepe said. “Just track time, more and more times hitting the track, you have more of the right things to do.”

A runner-up finish in the Dash meant Hafertepe started on the outside of Dash winner Matt Covington, who was on the pole for the second time in as many Series races at Dodge City this season.

Covington did not get to enjoy much time out front, as by the time he reached Turn 1 on the opening lap, the No. 15H had already used an immaculate start to take the top spot.

Four laps into the 30-lap Feature, Hafertepe’s lead was up to a second and a half when Jason Martin and Whit Gastineau made contact battling for the fifth spot, puncturing the left-front tire on Gastineau’s car and bringing out the first caution of the race.

Gastineau went to the work area to replace the tire and returned to the track, but his night soon went from bad to worse when he went head-on into the Turn 1 wall two laps later, which ended his night and reset the field once more.

In what would turn out to be the final restart of the night, Hafertepe once again got a strong jump and rode the upper lane to a commanding lead. Upon catching the tail of the field, the five-time Series champion made his case as one of the best Sprint Car drivers in the country at navigating lap traffic, slicing and dicing his way to an advantage of nearly half a lap at the finish.

“That’s the best we’ve gotten through lap traffic all year,” Hafertepe said. “That’s just a testament to how good our race car was. I could cut across the middle, I would say better than any car out here. I think that’s what gave us all the speed all race long.”

Seth Bergman started fifth and made his way forward to wrestle the second spot away from Covington in the middle stages. Had Bergman started the race a bit closer to the front, he believes he would have had something for the man chasing him in the standings.

“I think we definitely had pace to match him,” Bergman said. “There were times where I was gauging where he was at on the track and where I was, and he was in clean track and I was in traffic, and he gapped me a little bit. But when we both had clean air, I could see myself bringing him in.”

While Covington was frustrated to start on the pole twice this year at Dodge City and come up short on both occasions, the podium run kept him firmly in control of the third spot in points as his quest for a National Tour win in 2024 continues.

“We’re right there, we’re just a tick off,” Covington said. “Still figuring that out. I think we’re making strides, getting a little bit better, but we’re not good enough.”

Hank Davis drove from ninth to fourth to collect the Hard Charger Award in his second start at Dodge City, while Jason Martin finished fifth for his first top five since Creek County Speedway over two months ago.

UP NEXT: The National Tour will make the five-hour drive north to North Platte, NE’s Lincoln County Raceway on Saturday, which is making its return to the schedule for the first time since 1998. Tickets will be available at the track, while those unable to make it can catch every lap live on DIRTVision.

Feature (30 Laps): 1. 15H-Sam Hafertepe Jr[2]; 2. 23-Seth Bergman[5]; 3. 95-Matt Covington[1]; 4. 2C-Hank Davis[9]; 5. 36-Jason Martin[7]; 6. 55B-Brandon Anderson[11]; 7. 2J-Zach Blurton[3]; 8. 10-Landon Britt[8]; 9. 10C-Jeremy Campbell[12]; 10. 16G-Austyn Gossel[14]; 11. 938-Bradley Fezard[10]; 12. 15D-Andrew Deal[17]; 13. 23M-Lance Moss[16]; 14. 1X-Bryant Wiedeman[19]; 15. 42-Caleb Saiz[20]; 16. 88K-Jordan Knight[13]; 17. 88-Terry Easum[15]; 18. 91-Michael Day[18]; 19. 45X-Kyler Johnson[4]; 20. 2W-Whit Gastineau[6]; 21. (DNS) 91X-Jeff Stasa