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Fuel, Cut Tire Cost Hafertepe Jr. Top 5 At William

Sunnyvale, Texas-On a night when most World of Outlaws (WoO) drivers struggled, Sam Hafertepe Jr and the Plumbfast Racing Team stepped up to the plate with a strong run at Williams Grove Speedway this past Friday night. The Fusion Energy Boost 15H hovered around the top 5 all night until a cut tire and fuel issue dropped Sam from 6th to 12th in final 7 laps of the race.

The sprint car world always pays attention when the World of Outlaws roll into Pennsylvania. Hafertepe served notice that he would be someone to watch as he laid down the 2nd fastest lap in his warm up session which was good for 13th overall.

Time trials always play a pivotal role at Williams Grove and this time was no different as several top Outlaws including Donny Schatz, Steve Kinser, Joey Saldana and Jason Meyers struggled in qualifying and did not make the inversion. Fortunately Sam was able to knock off a very good lap and just squeaked his way into the inversion with a 16th place effort.

“I love this new Fisher motor”, stated Sam. “It races really well but it’s not really a great qualifying motor so it’s really important that we put up a good lap because we know if we put ourselves in a good situation in time trials that it is going to race so well”.

Sam had the pole for the heat race but it was Cody Darrah who took the lead and rocketed away with the win while Sam and Brian Leppo battled for the final Dash position. Eventually Sam was able to drive away from Leppo as the car seemed to get faster and faster with each lap and finish 2nd.

Hafertepe found himself surrounded by 9 strangers at the Dash pill draw as he was the only WoO driver to actually qualify for the dash. Sam pulled a 4 to put himself on the outside of row 2.

The Dash didn’t go as well as planned as Sam dropped from 4th to 6th.

“I couldn’t really find anywhere that the car would work”, explained the 2007 Knoxville Nationals Rookie of the Year. “I started looking around and gave my crew guys a bit of a scare the one lap when I went 4 wheels above the cushion and on the fence. I was surprised that only Hodnett got me when I did that”.

As the only WoO racer starting in the top 15 the pressure was squarely on Sam’s shoulders to try to bring home another win for the WoO over the Posse.

“The Posse really stepped up their game this year”, said the 3rd year WoO racer. “You always know it’s going to be really tough when you come here but these guys just did an amazing job sticking up for the Posse this time around”.

As Stevie Smith flew into turn 1 with the lead in the feature race Sam settled into the 7th position as he blasted the Fusion Energy Boost #15H around the topside of the speedway.

A lap 11 yellow moved Sam up one spot and into 6th.
As the race wore on it was clear that Sam had a very good car. Dave Ely was consistently able to pressure him in turns 1 and 2 but Sam would pull away in turns 3 and 4 as he experimented with both the top and bottom sides of the track. Ely got crossed up on lap 17 and Sam was able to get away and actually began to reel in Keith Kauffman and Lance Dewease.

Pressure would soon come however from Craig Dollansky and the battle began to be the top running Outlaw. Dollansky powered by on the top but Sam slowly started to reel him back in. Sam continued to work the bottom in turns 3 and 4 and finally after a few laps was able to slip back by Dollansky just before the KKR driver encountered troubles and brought out a yellow on lap 23.

Lap 23 would also prove to be Sam’s unravelling.

“We are fuelling this new motor a lot differently”, explained Sam. “This motor uses a lot more fuel than what we are used to and under the caution we started to run out of fuel. Had I known it was going to be an issue I would have leaned it out under the yellows and we would have been fine. On the restart it just wasn’t running the same and we began to really struggle. To make matters worse we cut a right rear tire and it had started to go flat”.

The restart was a disaster as Sam tried to hold onto the ailing car. He drove into turns 1 and 2 and nearly lost it. He lost several positions as he gathered the car up and took off. Unfortunately the fuel situation combined with the deflating tire was making things extremely difficult as Sam took the white flag in 13th.

Unfortunately for Posse fans but fortunately for Sam Lance Dewease went flipping in turns 1 and 2 to bring out a red flag.

Crew Chief Chris Strait and crew member Kory Miller were able to add plenty of fuel to the car and re-inflate the right rear tire under the open red flag conditions.

The green-white-checker finish saw Sam make several attempts on the low side of the speedway to try to get around Jason Meyers but Hafertepe didn’t quite have enough to make the pass stick and settled for 12th.

“We are thrilled with how we ran tonight”, exclaimed Sam. “At Delaware we were the only Outlaw team to not make the field and we were really down on how we ran. To come here and be the top Outlaw team for much of the night was a really impressive turnaround and says a lot about the effort Chris and Kory are putting into this team”.

The team will now head back to Strait’s shop in the Pennsylvania hills to prepare the car for Lowe’s and Virginia next weekend. Last year Sam had top-10 runs at both tracks including a career best 3rd place finish at Virginia Motor Speedway so the team is quite anxious to see if they can repeat their success of last year.

FUSION ENERGY BOOST FAST FACT-The Friday night show at Lowe’s Motor Speedway is the first televised show for the WoO this year and will be broadcast live on SpeedTV.

“It’s so important to have these television races”, said Sam. “We are able to get exposure for our supporters and hopefully we put on a great show that attracts new fans from all over. Hopefully we run pretty good there and get our sponsors names out there because they are such an important part of putting a car on the road out here”.

Support the people who support Sam: Fusion Energy Boost, G-H Plumbing, Keizer Aluminum Wheels, AFCO Shocks, Wings Unlimited and Smiley’s Race Products

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