CONCORD, N.C. — Sam Hafertepe Jr. has grow to be one in every of 360 dash automobile racing’s most completed drivers during the last decade.
A report 5 American Dash Automotive Sequence Nationwide Tour championships forefront his résumé, and he’s already made extra historical past 4 races into the 2025 season.
Hafertepe, 39, of Sunnyvale, Texas, captured the 79th checkered flag of his profession with the ASCS Nationwide Tour final Saturday at Salina Highbanks Speedway, which tied him with fellow five-time Tour champion Jason Johnson for second-most on the all-time characteristic wins checklist.
He solely trails four-time Tour champion Gary Wright, who amassed 128 Nationwide Tour wins throughout his 20-plus-year profession racing ASCS occasions.
“Undoubtedly by no means thought we’d get to the place we’re at this time, simply by no means actually considered it that method,” Hafertepe mentioned. “I’m undoubtedly not carried out. I really feel like we’ve bought a protracted option to go. I’m solely 39, and to perform what we’ve completed already, the sky’s the restrict.”
In comparison with conventional milestone recognition in sports activities, 79 will not be a quantity sometimes commemorated. However No. 79 for Hafertepe and the Hill’s Racing Crew is important due to the accomplishment they’ve now matched with two of the perfect in ASCS historical past.
“[Johnson] modified the sport for 360 racing at the moment,” Hafertepe mentioned. “You had Gary Wright’s deal, form of a low-buck deal, and he bought by. He had sponsor assist, he had issues like that, however he was successful with lots much less. Jason Johnson kinda took all that to the subsequent stage and made it actually skilled.
“He made 360 racing develop to the place it’s at this time — only a extra skilled look. Jason was ready to do this higher than anyone that had ever carried out it.”
Although they each had prolonged careers in dash automobile racing, Johnson and Hafertepe solely sporadically competed with each other. Whereas Hafertepe chased the World of Outlaws NOS Vitality Drink Dash Automotive Sequence circuit within the late 2000s, Johnson continued his climb up the nationwide 360 ranks with ASCS, successful his first two championships in 2008 and 2010 and notching runner-up finishes within the championship standings in 2006, 2007 and 2009.
When Hafertepe scaled again from the nationwide 410 dash automobile ranks on the flip of the 2010s in favor of a extra native/regional schedule, he took on the total ASCS Nationwide Tour in 2014 and raced alongside Johnson, who was in his ultimate season of 360 competitors.
Johnson gained his fifth and ultimate championship that season earlier than making the soar to the full-time World of Outlaws roster the next 12 months.
They raced solely that one season alongside one another earlier than Johnson’s demise in 2018, however Hafertepe had already taken a lot from Johnson and the legacy he left behind.
“It has elevated the whole lot,” Hafertepe mentioned. “So far as the tools we now have to have, the operations, the quantity of crew guys groups need to have. It by no means was like that, and it simply gave it a brand new method. I do know what we now have to have to achieve success, and it’s primarily as a result of we’ve carried out it earlier than.
“I really feel like [Jason] coming alongside again then when he did and making his operation a lot extra skilled than everyone else’s, I really feel like that actually turned the tables for all of 360 racing.”
After Johnson’s exit from the 360 ranks, Hafertepe took over, dominating ASCS with 48 Nationwide Tour wins and 5 consecutive championships from 2016 to 2020. Although these years are up to now, the numbers nonetheless shock him.
“I by no means knew the place that may be, by no means thought the place we’d find yourself; I by no means knew any of these issues,” Hafertepe mentioned. “I simply knew after we did begin working ASCS after coming off the highway for a number of years that my aim was to win. We have been able to win at the moment, and we simply kinda needed to put forth the hassle and the time that it took.
“After we did that, it paid big dividends — the years that I raced out on the highway with the Outlaws. Racing Pennsylvania and Ohio with the All Stars and touring as a lot as we did, it actually propelled us to have the ability to come again and race on the ASCS circuit, with the expertise that I gained, it propelled us to have the ability to win all these races.”
Like he’s beforehand echoed, Hafertepe nonetheless looks like he’s bought lots left to go in his profession. Now, his consideration turns to win No. 80, which is able to give him sole management of No. 2 on the all-time Nationwide Tour wins checklist. He’ll get his first likelihood at that this Friday and Saturday, April 25–26 at RPM Speedway in Crandall, Texas.
The quarter-mile monitor is positioned roughly 25 miles Southeast of Dallas and solely 20 miles from his dwelling in Sunnyvale, making it his new dwelling monitor after the closing of Satan’s Bowl Speedway in 2023. Hafertepe gained the final Tour race there in October and can intention for a tiebreaking win No. 80 within the two-day occasion there subsequent weekend.
“The most important consolation I get is it’s solely 20 miles for us,” Hafertepe mentioned. “It’s extraordinary for us to race that near dwelling, in order that’s the best factor. Numerous family and friends do come out; it makes it simpler for them to return out when it’s solely 20 miles away.
“It’s only a fairly cool place to go to as a result of it’s so near dwelling and we now have been fairly aggressive there each time we’ve went. I really feel prefer it’s simply one other a type of locations like, once you race at dwelling, you wish to get comfy at locations, and Satan’s Bowl was that place for us for therefore a few years. We gained quite a lot of races there. And now, hopefully, RPM will be that place for us.”
