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Sam Hafertepe Jr. Turns Luck Around With 8th...

[b Sam Hafertepe Jr. Turns Luck Around With 8th at Las Vegas]

[i Daryl Turford]

Sunnyvale, Texas-It was a wild night of racing for Sam Hafertepe Jr and The Plumbfast Racing Team this past Saturday night at Tri-State Speedway in Pocola, Oklahoma. Sam looked to be on his way to a stellar top 5 run after charging from deep in the field only to be caught up by a series of unfortunate events before eventually being scored 17th.

As has been the case lately Sam started out the night by setting one of the top 5 fastest times in warm-ups. Unfortunately Hafertepe’s qualifying struggles continued as he could only lay down the 14th fastest time trial run which would result in Sam missing the always important invert for the heat races.

The heat race was pretty uneventful for Sam. After a short duel with Bronson Maeschen Hafertepe settled into 5th where he would ultimately finish to lock himself into the main event in the 14th position.

The early laps of the feature saw Sam gain a pair of positions and settle into 12th. Hafertepe experimented with various lines and soon found a faster way around the speedway. As the laps began to click off Sam began to tear his way through the field. Hafertepe was especially fast when he utilized a slightly higher line in turn 4 than his competition as well as on restarts.

“The double file restarts really worked to my advantage tonight,” explained Sam. “Everyone was crowding each other to get to the rubber on the bottom of the turns so I just took a higher line and seemed to be able to pick up 1 or 2 spots on every restart.”

As the race wore on Sam was clearly getting stronger and stronger. Between laps 25 and 30 Sam was able to work his way into the top 5 from outside of the top 10 and appeared to be getting stronger.

As the race neared the 30 lap mark Hafertepe had worked his way into 5th and had just passed Steve Kinser on the bottom of turns 3 and 4 when the race went red.

During the red flag crew members Mike Schure and Daryl Turford added 10 gallons of fuel and made some air pressure adjustments in an effort to save the right rear tire which was down to the chords. Turford and Schure also examined the right rear tires of the other competitors that stopped and concluded that everyone was in trouble.

“During the red my guys told me that everyone else was also in trouble concerning tires,” explained Sam. “I told my guys I thought we had a car to win and I asked them and my dad if they wanted me to go for it and hope that the tire would hold up. Obviously they wanted me to go for it so we went back into the race on kill.”

The race would resume but not for long as more drivers blew their tires on the restart. During the yellow flag conditions Sam’s right rear tire gave way and he had to hit the work area. Schure and Turford we’re able to get the tire changed and sent Sam back out onto the track.

A rash of yellow flags for blown tires and The World of Outlaws official’s inability to line up the field in a timely manner resulted in Sam running out of fuel 3 laps later.

“My guys added 10 gallons of fuel to what was already in the car during the red flag,” explained Sam. “I never would have imagined that we weren’t going to have the fuel we needed to make it to the finish.”

Sam was brought to the work area and when 2 more cars ran out of fuel at the same time a red flag for a fuel stop was given. Hafertepe was already in the work area however and would not get to restart in the 8th position where he had been running.

Tires continued to blow up and the officials continued to struggle with the line ups. Ultimately this would lead to plenty of confusion on the final restart.

“They were having difficulty lining up the field on the final restart,” recalled Sam. “Guys were lining up 4-wide in front of me and the officials decided to turn the lights out. I wasn’t going to sit there and get taken out on the restart in all of the confusion so I gassed it up, went to the bottom and passed them before the restart. I assumed they would throw the yellow and do it all over again but I guess they’d had enough and just let the restart stand and as a result despite crossing the line 8th they put us 17th. To be honest I don’t have a problem with that decision as it was the proper one to make but I have a lot of problems with the officials putting me and the rest of the field in that situation. There was a cluster of cars and I was at the back, it really wasn’t a good situation and I wanted nothing to do with it.”

Sam and The Plumbfast Racing Team have now headed back to the shop in Sunnyvale, Texas to prepare for their races this upcoming weekend at Paducah and Pevely.

“We’ve been fast at Pevely before but we’ve never been as good as I’ve wanted to be at Paducah,” explained Sam. “We’re going to try some new things, hopefully we will hit on something and maybe bring home that elusive first feature victory.”

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