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Hafertepe Earns 6th at Eagle

Sunnyvale, Texas-It was an up and down weekend for the Plumbfast Racing Team and Sam Hafertepe Jr. Following a Friday night rainout at Husets the team headed to the Eagle Raceway in Nebraska where Sam brought home a 6th place finish on 7 cylinders. The following night Hafertepe was back in Husets and on the pole but the night came to a disappointing end after Sam was caught up in an opening lap wreck.
A tacky Eagle Raceway surfaced welcomed Sam and the rest of the Outlaws. Hafertepe had no trouble adapting to the track and was 2nd quick in his warm-up session.
Time trials were also good to Sam as he was the second car out to time trial and set the early standard. The track got faster and faster as qualifying went on and Sam eventually dropped to 4th.
“We went out early and the track was pretty greasy”, said the 2007 Knoxville Nationals Rookie of the Year. “We laid down a great lap and it wasn’t until fairly late in the session that the guys were able to beat it so we were pretty happy”.
The Plumbfast Racing #15H lined up 3rd in the heat race but following the start Sam had dropped to 4th. Hafertepe would settle in and earn a 4th place finish to qualify for a spot in the Crane Cams Dash.
Sam started the dash in 5th but dropped to 6th on the start. The race was fairly uneventful from there on out as Hafertepe would hold his position.
“The top was the place to be on the starts”, explained Sam. “Every driver who started on the outside of the row beat the driver starting on the inside”.
Hafertepe was running 5th heading into turn 1 on the opening lap but was forced up the track to avoid being run into by another car. As a result of his evasive manoeuvre Sam found himself in 7th chasing Craig Dollansky and Jac Haudenschild. As the race went on Sam started noticing a problem.
“I could feel something was wrong and I could hear a funny noise in the cockpit”, explained Sam. “We found out following the race that we had a problem in the motor and we actually ran most of the feature on 7 cylinders”.
As the race wore on Sam began to close on Haudenschild and finally on lap 34 and despite a sick motor he was able to make the pass stick on the bottom of turn 4. Hafertepe would hold 6th for the rest of the way to bring home a hard-earned top-10 finish.
That evening the team made the decision to tow back to Husets where they had been rained out Friday night.
“We’ve decided we’d like to run more races than just the World of Outlaws schedule”, explained Sam. “Kory (Miller) drove through the night to get us to Huset’s and then he, Daryl (Turford) and I washed the car and changed the motor out to get it ready”.
The team’s hard work paid off as the car was a rocket in warm-ups.
“We were supposed to time trial but 2 rain showers ended that so we ended up lining up the heats based on the draw”, explained Sam. “We were fortunate because that put us on the front row for our heat”.
The heat was stacked as Sam lined up beside Scott Winters with local hero Terry McCarl starting in the 2nd row and track points leader Mark Dobmeier starting deep in the field.
Sam dropped the hammer at the drop of the green and out-dragged Winters into turn 1. Winters was able to stay with Sam for the first 2 laps but Hafertepe began to steadily pull away and eventually won the heat by over a straightaway even after encountering lapped traffic over Winters and McCarl.
Hafertepe was then called to the front straightaway where he was asked if he wanted to take a challenge to come from the back for a hefty bonus.
“The money was tempting but the track was just way too fast to try to come from the back against this competition”, explained Sam. “I thought it was pretty cool when Robby Wolfgang decided to give it a shot though”.
Following the challenge offering Sam drew for the feature race inversion. The Sunnyvale, Texas native pulled the precious “1” pill to put himself on the pole for the feature race event.
Any hopes Sam had of tasting victory were crushed before the field completed a lap.
“We took the green and I could feel the other guy on the front row’s tire on my right rear most of the way down the straightaway”, recalled Sam. “I had to drive it into turn 1 and 2 really deep to keep us from wrecking and when I did that I got into the ledge of the cushion pretty hard. I was able to settle the car down and we were headed straight down the backstretch so I got my foot back on the gas when I felt a car slam into my left rear hard. The guy didn’t even lift, I’m not totally sure what he was thinking but he hit us and hit us hard. He hit us so hard in the left rear that he broke our right rear birdcage in addition to the left rear cage. I just really feel terrible not only for us, but also the fans. There was a ton of people there and I think a lot of them were pretty pumped to see Terry and I go at it in the feature and to be honest I was too. I think we were fast enough to win that race and it sucks that it got taken away like that”.
The team will once again head back to the Keizer Aluminum Wheels shop in Orange City, Iowa where they will prepare to take on the World of Outlaws on Wednesday night at 34 Raceway in Burlington, Iowa.
“McCarl is promoting the show in Burlington”, said Sam. “I feel like he got some of our money tonight so we’ll try to take as much of his on Wednesday”.
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