Hafertepe Opens Texas Sprint Car Nationals With Runner-Up Finish

Story By: BRYAN HULBERT / HILLS RACING – FORT WORTH, TX – So close, yet so far. Pretty much sums up the weekend for Sam Hafertepe, Jr. as the Hills Racing Team No. 15h came within a couple turns to victory to open up Tony Stewart presents the Vankor Texas Sprint Car Nationals only to have a last lap caution strip away his momentum.

“All in all, it was a good night,” stated Hafertepe who qualified for the Friday redraw. “The track started off pretty good, and we figured it was going to widen out. It actually caught us off guard so we were a little tight to start with, but we were still able to get from sixth to third which put us in a decent spot in the points after the Heat Races.”

Drawing the fifth starting spot, attrition through the first start moved Sam to third on the next attempt.

“There was some carnage there on the start that put us up to third, and really I just bided my time. We got Tony [Stewart] when he kind of messed up in one and two, and just rode behind Seth [Bergman] for a long time because when we got to lapped traffic you really couldn’t pass anyone with the way the track was. It was kind of one groove, so I didn’t really want to try and get past him at that point because he would have just gotten by me again in traffic,” explained Sam.

Keeping the No. 23 in striking distance, Sam waited for the right moment.

“I wanted to time everything just right, and it worked out that I got a run off turn-four coming for the white flag and Seth kind of opened the door up trying to get by a lapped car. He opened his entry up, it looked like, to diamond the corner and I snuck in underneath and got around him until the caution came out. After that, clean air for him on a track like that, there was nothing I could do.”

Locking into Saturday’s championship event, Sam drew the pole of the 30-lap feature event, but would not see the checkered flag as the defending race winner got tangled up trying to avoid a crash in turns three and four.

“The car was good, and we were plenty fast. Not guaranteeing we were going to win, but the car had a good balance to it where we were going to be hard to pass if we got lapped cars right, but obviously, that didn’t happen”

Running the bottom of the third turn, Sam trailed the No. 12h of Tony Bruce, Jr. As the pair came into turn four, however, the No. 28 of Scott Bogucki had spun to a stop, causing Tony to snap the car up the track and into the path of Hafertepe where the No. 15h launched over Bruce’s right rear tire and into the outside retaining wall.

Asked how he felt following the crash, Sam replied, “I was fine. As bad as the car looked, luckily, everything did its job. Even hitting the wall the way we did, it was softer than it looked. We’re just going to get another car down, rebuild, and get back after it. We have plenty of speed so we’re not down on ourselves at all.”

Credited with a 20th place finish, Sam’s came out of the weekend trailing Sammy Swindell for the Lucas Oil American Sprint Car Series presented by Sawblade.com point’s lead by 23 makers.Ready to return to the track, the team is watching this weekend’s forecast at several tracks to determine where the team will head next.