Sam at Lakeside (John Lee – www.HighFly-NPhotos.com)
(Bill W) May 15, 2017 – Sam Hafertepe Jr. and the Keith Dobbs #15H team fell one spot short of keeping their win streak alive with the Lucas Oil ASCS National Series. Going for six in a row, they would finish second Thursday night at Lakeside Speedway in Kansas City, Kansas. The team added a third-place finish in their first trip ever to the Humboldt (KS) Speedway Friday night with the ASCS-Red River region. The team will race with the regional series again this weekend in Oklahoma at Lawton Speedway and Creek County Speedway.
Sam started on the pole for his heat at Lakeside. “We knew drawing the pole in the heat with 36 cars there…we had to win it,” he says. “We knew that. As fast as the track was, it was nice and wide with two grooves. We were good on both the top and bottom. I felt we could run any line we wanted and we were able to win it.”
He would draw a starting spot inside row two for the main event. “It was a good race, but I feel we should have won it, to be honest,” says Sam of his second-place run. “When you’re as fast we were, you should know better. We were able to get the lead on the bottom (on lap 18). I should have stayed down there and made them go around me. As it was, I ran up top. I was looking to get a lapped car to gap us, and then I could really get away. I wasn’t able to get around him and we got passed.”
Adding to the challenge was the fact that Sam ran out of tear-offs. “It was really a mistake that cost me,” he says. “I didn’t put enough on. I’d run out with about ten to go, but it didn’t get really bad until the last five laps. When I tried to make another charge, I just couldn’t see. We had run a line going into one on the wall and diamonding down across the bottom of two. That was a great line for us, but we couldn’t do it at the end. I couldn’t really judge where the wall was. We were still pretty fast on the bottom, but I would have chosen the other line, if there was a choice. We ended up second.”
Humboldt Speedway was next on Friday. “It was a short quarter, with tight corners,” says Sam. “It about laid rubber in hot laps, so they re-tilled the whole track. Once it was rolled back in, it was slick in the heats. From the moment we got there, we noticed it had multiple grooves, and there really wasn’t a line that was dominant. We were able to win our heat after drawing the pole.”
This time, Sam would draw a starting spot for the feature inside row three. “(Blake) Hahn got to the top and pounced on the lead right away,” he says. “That’s really what you had to do. He’s raced there before. He ran a line that no one else was going to run early, and attacked it. That was our downfall. I was thinking we needed some finesse and 25 laps of smooth driving. He took the approach of ‘getting after it’, and that’s why he won the race,”
As the race went on, he had the leaders in his sights, but settled for third. “We tightened up quite a bit,” says Sam. “We did a few things that we normally don’t do to the car. But for regional competition, we look at it as a place to learn and try things. By the end of the race, we were rolling up on the leaders. We just never got to a point where I thought we could pass them. It seemed every line was the same speed, and we ended up third.”
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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 at Lakeside (John Lee – www.HighFly-NPhotos.com)
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Monroe, IA USA