Sunnyvale, Texas-It appears as though a trip to Las Vegas was all Sam Hafertepe Jr and The Plumbfast Racing Team needed to change their luck this season. The team was able to re-group following 2 disappointing races in Florida that saw the Lone Star Speedway #15H drop out while running in the top 10 and score an impressive 8th place finish with The World of Outlaws (WoO) at Las Vegas Motor Speedway this past Friday night.
The evening started off with Sam drawing the 57 pill and as a result he would be the second last car to take a time. Sam laid down a lap that was good enough for 11th quick and put him on the pole for his heat.
“We were certainly glad to make the invert again but we need to be just a little bit better in time trials,” explained the Sunnyvale, Texas racer. “We are making the inversions but not timing in up front and we need to start doing that. Today was particularly tough though because the field was so close, we were 11th but we were only like a 1/10th off quick time.”
The heat race was a showdown between two of sprint car racing’s most exciting drivers as Sam and Tim Kaeding had a drag race down the front straightaway to start the heat. Sam was able to pull slightly away and slide across in front of Kaeding heading into turn 1. Hafertepe attacked the cushion and drove away to his 3rd WoO heat race win of the season to stay unbeaten in WoO heats in 2010.
“It was really important to get into the lead,” said Sam. “It was slick right up to curb on the cushion so it was hard to pass. We were able to get out front, get up on the curb and set sail. We need to be better though because the car is just too tight on the curb but when I enter below the curb we are too free.”
Sam lined up for the Dash in the 9th position. Hafertepe dropped back to 10th on the start but was able to power his past Chad Kemenah on the cushion and back into 9th where he would stay the rest of the way.
“We are still missing something,” said Sam following the Dash. “We are having the same problem we had in the heat and it’s holding us up just a little bit. We can stay with the cars in front of us but we’ve got to get a lot better if we’re going to pass them.”
Hafertepe held his position through the early laps of the feature as he rode around the curb. Craig Dollansky pressured Sam several times and finally on lap 9 Dollansky was able to pass Sam and drop Sam back to 10th.
Sam was able to work his way past Terry McCarl a couple of laps later and held the 9th position as he tried to track down a fading Fred Rahmer. On lap 18 Hafertepe was able to dispose of Rahmer and set his sight on Brad Sweet.
During the closing laps Hafertepe was able to close down on Sweet as Brad dealt with lapped traffic. The pair had some anxious moments including a 3 wide pass of a lapped car but Sweet was able to get through traffic cleanly.
Hafertepe then had to deal with Chad Kemenah before Lucas Wolfe made a late race charge and nearly passed Sam in turn 4 with 2 laps to go when Hafertepe got bottled up behind a slower car. Fortunately Sam was able to clear the car and pull away over the final 2 laps to score his first top 10 of the season with The WoO.
“We’ll definitely take it,” said Sam. “We were not quite as fast as we were in Florida or as fast as we wanted to be tonight but after dropping out of the first 2 races of the season it was really important to get on track here and get a solid finish to help us make up some points. I think we may have gone too hard with our tire selection and I know most of the guys did go softer than us but we kind of needed to be conservative and make sure we finished the race. I also think we may have made the wrong decision on the left rear shock that we ended up running but we’ll get it all sorted out and hopefully have a great weekend in Tulare. Mike (Schure) and Daryl (Turford) are working really well together and I don’t think it will be too long before you see us get that elusive first win if we keep performing like we have.”
The Plumbfast Racing Team is now headed to The Tulare Thunderbowl Speedway for events this Friday and Saturday. Following the California weekend Hafertepe and the rest of The WoO will be headed to Lone Star Speedway in Kilgore, Texas where Sam will try to get a win in front of his hometown fans at his family owned speedway.
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- administrator on Mar 03, 2010
- Article Date: 3/3/2010