Following a disappointing rainout at The Salina Highbanks with The World of Outlaws Sam Hafertepe Jr. is now preparing to take on the best that The All Star Circuit of Champions and “The Pennsylvania Posse” have to offer. The upcoming weekend will see Sam once again pilot The Pancho’s Racing Products #93 for Pancho and Tab Lawler as The All Stars invade Williams Grove Speedway and Port Royal Speedway.
“I’m really excited to get back to running this car,” said Sam. “They were absolutely awesome when we ran for them at the end of the 2009 season. I remember the one night we’d timed in bad so we were at the back of a rubber down B Main and I told them they didn’t need to put new tires on and they wouldn’t hear of it. That’s the kind of car owner Pancho is. He’s going to give you his absolute best equipment and his team is going to give you their absolute best effort. You can’t ask for anything more than that out of a car owner.”
The team will start out with a J&J and a brand new Don Ott motor.
“I haven’t run a J&J for a while but I don’t think it should be a problem,” said Sam. “I’ve run J&J’s most of my career so I don’t think it will be much of an adjustment if any at all and I’m really looking forward to getting their new motor in the car and seeing what we can do together because I think this is a really good combination for all of us.”
Hafertepe and Team Pancho’s are looking at roughly a 30 race schedule together.
“A lot of Pennsylvanians have approached us asking us what our schedule is and seem genuinely excited that I’ll be racing there,” said Sam. “We’re going to start out with The All Stars this weekend and sort of use that weekend as a shakedown to prepare for when The World of Outlaws are there two weeks later. We’re going to run I think most if not all of the area All Star shows with Pancho’s, all of The World of Outlaws shows, we’re going to run every Keystone Cup race and The Pennsylvania Speedweek races. We may get together and run the odd time trial show together or something like that and I’ve also told them that any other races they want to run will get priority when it comes to our schedule so I think Pennsylvania fans will be seeing a lot of us this year.”
Sam is also looking forward to visiting several new tracks as he runs all over Pennsylvania.
“It’s going to be kind of interesting,” said Sam. “When you do The Outlaw tour and The ASCS tour like we have in the past you rarely find yourself coming to a race track you’ve never been to before. However places like Port Royal, Lincoln and Selinsgrove, the places I consider the core Pennsylvania tracks in addition to Williams Grove are all tracks I’ve never raced at. Out of the 3 of them I’ve only even watched a race at Port Royal.”
Despite the lack of experience at the Pennsylvania speedplants Hafertepe is not worried.
“My crew guy has been chomping at the bit to get me to race at Lincoln,” said Sam. “He feels as though that place was built for my style of racing and we tried to run there a few times last year but The Outlaws wouldn’t let us. I also typically run really well on big, fast half-miles so I think Port Royal and Selinsgrove will suit me pretty well too. It should be really interesting and I’m just really looking forward to getting this started with Team Pancho’s.”
Sam also plans to do some other racing while he’s based out of Pennsylvania.
“We’ll probably set up shop at Pancho’s Racing Products for almost a month,” said Sam. “During the weeks that we aren’t going to run The Pancho’s #93 I think we’re going to race against The Outlaws at Eldora and then the week before Keystone Cup we’ll race with The Outlaws at I-96 and Attica. I don’t think staying in PA will make us Posse but it sure would be interesting to see what people label us if we can put The Pancho’s Racing Products car in victory lane against The Outlaws at Williams Grove.”
Sam would like to thank the following supporters: Plumbfast Mechanical, Lone Star Speedway, Keizer Aluminum Wheels, Pancho's Racing Products, Kear's Speed Shop, PPM Titanium Products, GPC Race Products, Butlerbuilt, Infinity Shocks, DMI, Finish Line Machining, Torco Racing Oils, Smiley's Racing Products, Brown and Miller Racing Solutions, Vortex Wings, AFCO Racing Shocks, Simpson Racing Products, Quick Sand Express Inc.
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- administrator on Apr 25, 2011
- Article Date: 4/25/2011