Hafertepe Earns Pair of Top Tens During 2019 Jim Raper Memorial Dirt Cup

Bryan Hulbert - ALGER, Wash. (June 24, 2019) While Sam Hafertepe, Jr. didn't have the weekend the team had set out for, the Heidbreder Foundation No. 15h was not without a solid performance as the weekend ended with a pair of top-ten finishes to rebound from a DNF on Thursday night, with Hafertepe ended his weekend with an overall best performance of sixth on Saturday night.

"It was a lot of small hiccups this weekend that led to us not having the result that we definitely wanted," commented Hafertepe of the overall event.

Losing a tire while running 10th on Thursday night, time was not on Sam's side as the green lights came on with the No. 15h stuck in the work area. Resulting in a 21st place finish, the following night ended with much better results with Sam climbing from 15th to seventh in the A-Feature.

Going into Saturday, Sam's ability to carry the car and the team's hard work rewarded them with being locked into Saturday's A-Feature. With things a little easier for their Saturday at Dirt Cup, the team swapped cars. Trying to utilize the car that Sam had crashed in at Black Hills Speedway, it was apparent that there were more issues than originally thought. The change was immediately felt as Sam was by far among the quickest in A-Feature Hot Laps.

"We tried to fix it, and there was just more wrong with it than what we thought so we pulled the backup car down for Saturday and it responded almost immediately. I think that really kind of contributed to our lack of performance the first two nights as well and we were good in the feature. We were just a little too tight with our car for the conditions we had."

Looking to the team's next outing, the Fred Brownfield Classic presented by Little Creek Casino lay ahead on Friday, June 28 and Saturday, June 29 at Grays Harbor Raceway with the Lucas Oil American Sprint Car Series presented by the MAVTV Motorsports Network.

A track where Sam has three wins, the Sunnyvale, Texas shoe is confident on the coming weekend, "Going into Grays Harbor, we'll be right back on track where we were before. We'll start all over and shrug off a bad couple nights, and not get behind the eight-ball. We've got a really fast racecar and going to Grays Harbor; we know we can compete."

For continued updates on Sam Hafertepe, Jr. log onto http://www.sam15.com and make sure to find him on Twitter (@samhafertepejr). For news on Hill's Racing Team, log onto https://www.facebook.com/hillsracing/ and on Twitter (@HillsRacingTeam).

2019 Season to Date:

Events: 23; Wins -5 ; Top 5 - 11; Top 10 - 16; Top 20 - 17;

Coming Up:

June 28 - Grays Harbor Raceway (Elma, Wash.) w/Lucas Oil ASCS
June 29 - Grays Harbor Raceway (Elma, Wash.) w/Lucas Oil ASCS

Sam Hafertepe, Jr. Online:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100011628097506
Website: http://www.sam15.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/samhafertepejr

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