CONCORD, N.C. — The American Sprint Car Series heads back to its homeland of Oklahoma for back-to-back events at Creek County Speedway and Tri-State Speedway, Friday and Saturday, June 13–14.
Creek County — the home track of ASCS — hosts the national 360 sprint car series for the 34th time in track history on Friday, June 13, in the fifth annual Don Swope Classic.
The event, co-sanctioned by the ASCS Sooner Region, is run in memory of the late Don Swope — a dear friend of ASCS founder Emmett Hahn and the family and crew that put on the marquee Chili Bowl Nationals and Tulsa Shootout events.
The following evening, the Series heads east to Pocola, Okla., for a visit to Tri-State Speedway. The three-eighths-mile oval, located near the Oklahoma–Arkansas border, welcomed the series in June of last year, ending an 18-year absence of national 360 sprint car racing at the track.
Seth Bergman took the checkered flag that night en route to his first national ASCS championship. This weekend, the national series stars collide with the ASCS Sooner Region challengers to battle for a $4,000 grand prize.
KING OF THE CREEK
Through 33 series events contested at Creek County, nobody has won more than Sam Hafertepe Jr.
The five-time series champion from Sunnyvale, Texas, scored his first ASCS win at the track on opening night of the 2016 edition of Fuzzy’s Fall Fling, and has scored subsequent victories in 2018, 2019, as well as two of the three series events held there last season.
Hafertepe won the ASCS Speedweek event there in June before taking the checkers again in the finale of Fuzzy’s Fall Fling last November.
Hafertepe and the Hill’s Racing Team are headed into the weekend with momentum from their third series victory of the year last Saturday at Texarkana 67 Speedway in which they got the best of Blake Hahn and Matt Covington in a thrilling, back-and-forth battle around the Arkansas oval. The No. 15h team now leads the points standings by 76 over Covington.
BOUNCE BACK
After three consecutive results outside the top-five, defending sSeries champion Seth Bergman returned to competitive form at Texarkana with a fourth-place finish in the main event.
Bergman, originally from Snohomish, Wash., encountered mechanical failure at Paducah International Raceway in May and suffered a DNF, then posted back-to-back eighth-place finishes three weeks later in Kansas at Salt City Speedway and Dodge City Raceway Park.
These results left him fifth in the points standings and still without his first podium finish at the national level this year.
However, his fourth-place finish in Texarkana boosted him into fourth-place in the standings, where he now sits 119 points behind leader Hafertepe.
Looking back at his championship-clinching 2024 season, Bergman posted strong results at both tracks he visits this weekend — winning the ASCS Speedweek event at Tri-State in June, and posting finishes of second, third, and fourth in the three Series events contested at Creek County.
HOMETOWN HERO
When it comes to Creek County, few drivers know how to get around its quarter-mile confines like Blake Hahn.
The two-time series champion from Sapulpa, Okla., has won in a winged 360 sprint car, a non-winged 360 sprint car and a midget at the track with several different sanctioning organizations. This includes six ASCS regional feature wins and two on the national circuit, two non-winged sprint car wins with the USAC Southwest Sprint Car Series, and two wins with the POWRi National Midget League.
The most recent of Hahn’s Creek County wins came in March, when he topped the opening night of the ASCS Sooner Region schedule. Hahn also scored his first career (points-paying) ASCS National win last November on opening night of the Fuzzy’s Fall Fling.
MATT IS BACK
Matt Covington has found his competitive stride once again with the American Sprint Car Series, posting three top-five finishes and one win in his last five starts.
The multi-time ASCS regional champion from Glenpool, Okla., nearly scored a second win of the season Saturday at Texarkana, leading the opening 18 laps before falling back to finish third. Still, he showed renewed competitiveness in the No. 95 car, which has seeded him second in the points standings — 76 points back of Hafertepe.
This weekend, Covington heads to two Oklahoma venues he’s had past success at, winning a Sooner Region show at Creek County in 2012 and another at Tri-State in 2019.
REGIONAL RINGER
Creek County is a home track for five-time ASCS Sooner Region champion Sean McClelland, and he’s made a habit of winning there in his 25-plus-year career.
The 50-year-old from Tulsa, Okla., has won nine Sooner Region races at the track in his career, and in 2023 scored his first ASCS National win at Creek, topping Chance Morton and Jordon Mallett for his second career win on the national circuit and first since 2006.
McClelland last raced with the National Series in April at Salina Highbanks Speedway, running third to Seth Bergman and Sam Hafertepe Jr.
