6/27/2017
Sam Hafertepe Jr
Sam Hafertepe Jr. – Doubling Up with Second $15,000 Dirt Cup!
Sam Hafertepe Jr. – Doubling Up with Second $15,000 Dirt Cup!
(Bill W) June 27, 2017 – Sam Hafertepe Jr. and the Keith Dobbs #15H racing team grabbed one of the Lucas Oil ASCS National Series crown jewels by capturing their second $15,000 Jim Raper Memorial Dirt Cup last weekend at Skagit Speedway near Alger, Washington. The Sunnyvale, Texas native swept both Friday and Saturday features. This weekend, Sam will try to defend another title in Washington when the series descends on Grays Harbor Raceway for the Fred Brownfield Classic.
Sam struggled in Thursday’s first night of the Dirt Cup, finishing 15th. “Thursday, the track just wasn’t our forte,” he says. “It was rough and heavy, and our car just doesn’t go well on surfaces like that. Also, we weren’t prepared for that based on last year’s track. We should have done our homework for Thursday a little better.”
The track turned around for the team over the course of the weekend. “Friday and Saturday’s tracks were almost identical,” says Sam. “We had a cushion on the wall, and you could run the bottom as well. We were a little sketchy in hot laps on Friday. We thought there were still some holes out there, so we tightened up. Once we saw that (track owner) Steve Beitler had gotten rid of that stuff, we started going back to our game plan.”
Sam started fourth in his heat Friday. “We were really good in the heat race,” he says. “We started sixth in the Qualifier, and only got up to fourth. Fortunately, we had earned so many points in the heat race, that it still put us on the pole for the feature.”
He would take off immediately in the main event. “After the Qualifier, I knew how far we could go with the car and what to expect,” says Sam. “Steve reworked the track again, and we dialed it in. We ended up winning Friday’s feature by a little over five seconds.”
After Thursday, Sam was fourth in overall points and would start the $15,000 to win finale outside row two. “We were able to get to second on the second or third lap,” he says. “We maintained with the leader (Roger Crockett) there for a while. Right when we got to traffic, he couldn’t get through there like we could. The top opened up for us, and he was on the bottom. Once we got the lead, and got in rhythm, we were able to get through lapped traffic.”
Getting through traffic proved to be exciting. “We were putting some big slidejobs on some of them,” says Sam. “Thankfully, a lot of them were courteous enough to check up and let us go when we got there. We got in a good rhythm. We were catching lapped traffic, and divebombing them in the corners.”
Sam saw moving through lapped traffic as the key to his success. “The thing that separated us on Friday and Saturday was, we could really move around in lapped traffic. I don’t know that we were way faster than everybody, but the way our car was moving around in traffic was second to none. That’s what separated us from everyone last weekend.”
He’s excited about this weekend’s event at Grays Harbor. “We swept the weekend there last year,” says Sam. “We’re really looking forward to going back and defending our title. It’s a really cool racetrack and a nice surface.”
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Sam would like to thank Highway 79 Collision Center, the Sparks Family, Kiebler & Sons Lawn and Landscaping, Keizer Aluminum Wheels, Champion Oil, NAPA Auto Parts of Franklin and Sherwin Williams, FK Rod Ends, 21R Youth Racing League, Huggins Cams, CP Carrillo, Callie’s, Vortex Wings, Simpson Racing Products, Kinsler Injection, Barnes Oil Systems, DMI, Fisher Racing Engines, Moose Blocks, J&J Auto Racing, KSE, Smiley’s Racing Products, Hoosier Tire, Brown & Miller Racing Solutions.
Photo: Sam celebrate their second $15,000 Dirt Cup Victory in as many years (Photo from ODS Carbon Fiber)
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Monroe, IA USA