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Sam Hafertepe Jr. Charges From Deep at Paducah...

[b Sam Hafertepe Jr. Charges From Deep at Paducah and Pevely]

[i Daryl Turford]

Sunnyvale, Texas-Sam Hafertepe Jr and The Plumbfast Racing Team spent this past weekend with The World of Outlaws (WoO) fighting back from disappointing time trial runs. Hafertepe charged from 23rd to 13th on Friday night at Paducah and then from 23rd to 15th at I-55 Raceway in Pevely, MO the following night.

The Plumbfast Racing Team struggled throughout much of the night at Paducah. Sam was not fast in warm ups and the car was too tight in qualifying. A late number for time trials didn’t help either as Sam timed in 23rd in the field.

The heat race did not go much better for Sam as he started and finished 6th which meant he would have to run his first Last Chance Showdown of the season.

Hafertepe worked his way into to 5th early but was clearly struggling to move into 4th and the last transfer position.

“We changed everything on the car all night and we just couldn’t get dialled in,” explained Sam. “I just kept pounding away at the bottom, hitting my marks and hoping other guys would mess up.”
Ricky Logan would eventually drop Sam back to 6th however Sam’s persistence paid off and Sam soon used to the bottom to drive back by Logan and Toni Lutar to earn the final transfer spot. Sam also closed in on the top 3 cars but ran out of laps.

The feature once again saw Sam and the team throw the kitchen sink at the car and for the feature it was better but still not where the team needed to be. The early laps saw Sam make some good moves to move forward but double file restarts were hurting him.

“It took us a lap or two to build up pressure in the tires,” explained Sam. “Once they got where they should be we were fine but we’d lose a spot or two every restart waiting for the car to come in.”

Sam would work his way as high as 12th before ultimately finishing the feature in 13th following a last lap pass of Paul McMahan.

“I guess we’ll take it,” said Sam following the feature event. “The car wasn’t nearly as good as it could be. We just seemed to be missing something tonight and I really couldn’t come up with an answer. Truthfully we didn’t deserve to finish as good as we did but I drove my butt off tonight.”

The Plumbfast Racing Team loaded up and headed to I-55 Speedway in Pevely, MO with hopes of a better run the following night but again the team struggled.

“The car felt really good in hot laps but it turns out we were actually really slow,” said Sam. “We changed a couple of minor things and didn’t really get much faster.”

Sam would again start 6th in his heat but was able to get the jump on inside row 3 starter Tony Bruce Jr at the drop of the green. Hafertepe rode the cushion all of the way around to safely transfer into the feature race.

Sam lined up 23rd yet again for the feature but did not move through the field as smoothly as he had the night before. Hafertepe searched for the best spot on the track to run his car and finally settled on the bottom about 15 laps into the feature. Unfortunately Sam would bring out a yellow flag just before the halfway point.

“At some point while we were racing out there the fuel shut off started to close up a bit and the motor started to sputter,” said Sam. “The guys figured out the problem pretty quickly and got me back out there.”

Sam would pick off a few more spots and eventually come home in the 15th position.

“We certainly didn’t get the results we wanted this weekend,” said Sam. “We are really, really struggling in time trials, we’re racing fine but it’s just so hard to come from behind in a World of Outlaws field. You can do it once or twice but you can’t keep doing it to yourself like we have been. We’re going to head back to the shop and we’re going to figure this out because I’m not going to accept it. We are a better team than this and we are going to turn things around. We’re going to come into Haubstadt this Saturday and we’re going to throw everything we have at the place and hopefully we’ll run as good there as we have in the past.”

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