(Bob Buffenbarger Photo)
(Bill W) June 7, 2016 – Sam Hafertepe Jr. and the Keith Dobbs #15H team ran a strong second at Hartford Speedway in Michigan with the ASCS National Series last Friday night. Unfortunately, a pair of Indiana rainouts meant a long trip for one race. But the Sunnyvale, Texas driver should get his fix this week as ASCS Speedweek gets underway at Route 66 Motor Speedway in Amarillo, Texas Saturday.
Sam took to the big Hartford Speedway quickly. “Hartford is a track we hadn’t been to before,” he says. “We seemed to adapt o.k. It’s similar to the way I-96 Speedway (Lake Odessa) used to be up there. It’s a big half-mile and it has the same type of dirt. The tracks are laid out a little different, but it gave me something to compare to before we got there.”
The heat draw didn’t go so well. “We started in the back (eighth) of a pretty tough heat,” says Sam. “Johnny (Herrera) was out front, and (Aaron) Reutzel and (Matt) Covington were in there. Dustin Daggett is a regular up in that area, and he was in there too. It made it tough to get through there. We had a really good racecar there. We were able to hit our marks and get up to third. We ran down Daggett for second, but we ran out of laps.”
The third place finish put Sam in the redraw, where he earned the fourth starting spot in the feature. “That put us in a good position,” he says. “On the first start, we had the lead coming off of two. (Josh) Baughman spun. I feel like if that start went, we could have won the race. On the next start, (Blake) Hahn spun and collected (Brad) Loyet. That put us on the front row.”
With Herrera on the pole, it would be a race to turn two. “I had been running the outside line in one and two,” says Sam. “By the time the third time came around, it dirtied up the outside line. That left me in ‘no-man’s land’ out there. We couldn’t clear Johnny coming off of two, and we followed him the whole race.”
Sam took a few cracks at the leader. “In one and two, you had to run the bottom,” he says. “You had a few options in three and four, but you had to stay in the clean part of the racetrack. I stalked him the whole race, and got beside him a couple of times coming off of two. We got chopped pretty hard. There were three laps to go at the end, and I started ‘Hail Mary’ driving in three and four in the dirty stuff trying to make something happen. I got to the outside of him in four, and he blocked me pretty hard. All in all, we had a really good racecar.”
Saturday’s race at Amarillo starts a six-race ASCS Speedweek. A week from today, it will move to Devil’s Bowl Speedway near Mesquite, Texas, before the series goes to Lawton Speedway in Oklahoma Wednesday, Creek County Speedway near Sapulpa, Oklahoma Thursday, Missouri State Fair Speedway in Sedalia Friday and Lucas Oil Speedway near Wheatland, Missouri Saturday.
Sam is excited to get some racing in. “We haven’t been to Amarillo, but we have a pretty good track record at the other places,” he says. Devil’s Bowl has always been good to us, and we won the last time we were at Lawton. We were at Creek once this year already. Big places like Sedalia are kind of my forte, so I’m looking forward to that. We always do well at Wheatland too.”
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Sam would like to thank Highway 79 Collision Center, the Sparks Family, Kiebler & Sons Lawn and Landscaping, Keizer Aluminum Wheels and Champion Oil.
Photo: (Bob Buffenbarger Photo)
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Monroe, IA USA