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Hafertepe Just Misses First Career Outlaws Win at

Sam Hafertepe Jr. of Sunnyvale, Texas nearly capped of a terrific night at Eldora Speedway this past Friday night The World of Outlaws (WoO) with his first career WoO victory but came up just short as he trailed Joey Saldana to finish after starting in the 11th position. Hafertepe who is in the midst of the best season of his career having already captured 2 ASCS feature wins worked the bottom of the speedway to perfection as he once again reminded sprint car fans that he is on the verge of breaking through for his first Outlaw win.

Sam began the evening by driving his Lone Star Speedway Maxim-Fisher to the 4th quick time in time trials but felt he left a lot on the table.

"We were actually not good at all in qualifying," said Sam. "We were way too free and I didn't make the laps I wanted to make. I didn't get the first lap right but fortunately our second lap was pretty good but like I said, we left a lot on the table. I'm not going to say we'd have knocked Kemenah off quick time as I have no idea how he dropped a lap that fast but we probably should have been 2nd quick if we'd have been close on setup."

Sam started 4th in his heat race and dropped to 5th on the start. He would hound Greg Wilson throughout the heat trying high and low to get around him but ultimately had to settle for 5th.

"I was really surprised they let the start go," said Sam. "The guy inside of me was beside the leaders before they even took the green and that let everyone freight train me on the start. I don't know why they didn't call the start back but that in addition to just being a little off in time trials may have cost us the win."

The team went to work on preparing the car for the feature and made a few changes.

"We spent a couple of days before the races at our engine builder Charlie Fisher's shop," explained Sam. "People who know Charlie or remember his cars know he was willing to try some pretty radical ideas on his cars when he raced. He had some ideas for us and I wasn't quite willing to try them, but what Daryl and I tried to do was adopt the thinking behind it. The idea that no matter where we start, no matter where we are, we are going to try to win the race. So often on The Outlaw tour you are afraid to try things and Charlie sort of freed our mind up and helped us see that we could make changes that we didn't think we should try in the past. I had a gut feeling all week about what I would need to do to the car for the feature and I normally wouldn't have done it but when we brought up the idea at the track we decided that we were going to try it and that we'd either look like heroes or zeros, but at least we'd try to win the race."

The changes the team made to the race car paid off when the green flag dropped as it was evident to anyone who watched Sam that he had a fast race car althout it wasn't clear to Sam himself.

"We had a red on lap 4 and I'd kind of been stuck behind Daryn Pittman and treading water," recalled Sam. "Daryl said the car looked really good though and that if we could clear Pittman we could get up there. I knew the car was decent but I didn't realize how fast we actually were until the restart when I was able to pass 4 cars in turns 1 and 2."

Sam's pass of Pittman, Chad Kemenah, Kerry Madsen and Paul McMahan was negated by a yellow flag but he was now aware he had a fast car. Following the restart Sam went right back to work and began moving forward by driving in on the top in turn 1 and then diamonding turn 2 and working the bottom in turns 3 and 4. As the race went on Sam became more and more dependant on the bottom.

"The car was actually good all over the track," said Sam. "I could run the car wherever I wanted but everyone was up high so I just started to run the bottom all of the way around and had clear track in front of me the whole time."

Hafertepe disposed of McMahan, Jason Meyers and Steve Kinser to work his way into the 3rd spot when a red flag flew on lap 20.

"That was our chance to win the race right there," stated Sam. "I was restarting on the top and I knew I could get a run on Joey on the restart. I got a nice jump and I got outside of Joey but he sort of moved up to block me. At the same time McMahan had gone higher than both of us and had a run on the outside. I sort of got squeezed in the middle and had to blip the throttle for a second. Instead of being 2nd right on Donny Schatz going into turn 1 I ended up dropping to 4th."

Hafertepe began an intense battle with McMahan as he began working his way back into contention for the win. Finally with 5 laps remaining he was able to dispose of McMahan and 1 lap later drove under Schatz for 2nd.

"From there on out I changed my line a bit and ran the top in 3 and 4," said Sam. "I couldn't tell if I was catching or losing ground to Joey so I think we were pretty even over the final laps and I was going to need him to make a mistake to win. Joey Saldana in open track at Eldora isn't going to make a mistake though and once again we found ourselves running 2nd to that #9 car. It seems like every time we're close to a win he's always the guy that gets us."

Despite being oh so close and coming up just short of his first career WoO win Sam was quite happy.

"There's been times where we ran 2nd with these guys and I've been absolutely disgusted," recalled Sam. "I can swallow this one a lot easier though. We had a good car, we made things happen, we were fast and we gave it everything we had. We can leave here with our heads held high and you better believe that we will be set on kill when we come back here for The Kings Royal in July."

Sam will now once again head back to Pennsylvania and hop behind the wheel of The Pancho's Racing Products #93 at Williams Grove Speedway for 2 nights against The Outlaws before they head to Lincoln Sunday for a time trial show.

"I'm really looking forward to getting back into the Pancho's car and proving that the other week was an aberration," said Sam. "They are at the shop right now building me a brand new Maxim chassis so there are going to be no excuses. We're going to throw everything we have at them and hopefully we'll come out of the weekend with some solid results as we build towards The Keystone Cup at the end of the month."

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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