BELLEVILLE, Kan. — Sam Hafertepe Jr. is back in his groove again.
The American Sprint Car Series points leader ended his wait to victory lane with a dominant performance on the opening night of The Big One at Belleville High Banks for his first ASCS win of the 2026 season.
Hafertepe put his No. 15h Maxim Chassis at the top of the leaderboard throughout Friday, leading the way in hot laps, setting a new track record in qualifying, then won the dash to start on the pole for the night’s feature.
When the green flag waved, Hafertepe darted to the lead over Matt Covington by keeping his car through the middle lane of Turn 1, then slid up the track out of Turn 2 to get clear as Garrett Benson used the open space on the cushion of the half-mile to take the runner-up spot over Covington.
The Sunnyvale, Texas, driver orchestrated the pace of the Feature by stretching the lead by 0.5 seconds per lap to reach a one-second lead over Benson through the first quarter of the 20-lap feature.
When Hafertepe reached the halfway point, he amassed a 2.6-second gap as lap traffic began to interrupt his leading momentum. Benson began to reel in the leader back in his direction, then lost ground on Hafertepe once more as he found clean air after overtaking the lapped cars.
Reaching a 3.5-second lead by the sight of the twin checkered flags, Hafertepe claimed his 89th ASCS National Tour triumph and stretched the points lead to 37 markers over Covington exiting the night.
“It was a really good race car,” Hafertepe said. “We kind of tried a little bit in the Heat race, and probably wasn’t what we needed. Then, we tried a little more in the dash, then made some more changes for the Feature, and got our car feeling like it was here last year.
“We’re on, man. I’ve had interviews about it, going ‘You haven’t won a race and all this.’ I mean, I won one now. So, it was inevitable. I didn’t know if it was gonna happen tonight, tomorrow, whenever, but it was gonna happen.”
Benson finished the night in second, and Covington completed the podium for his third appearance in the last four Series races. Jake Bubak finished fourth, and Seth Bergman rounded out the top five.
The finish:
Feature (20 Laps): 1. 15H-Sam Hafertepe Jr[1]; 2. 27B-Garrett Benson[4]; 3. 95-Matt Covington[2]; 4. 9-Jake Bubak[8]; 5. 23-Seth Bergman[3]; 6. 1X-Bryant Wiedeman[5]; 7. 2-Whit Gastineau[12]; 8. 14-Joey Danley[6]; 9. 88-Terry Easum[9]; 10. 2J-Zach Blurton[7]; 11. 88R-Ryder Laplante[16]; 12. 45X-Kyler Johnson[10]; 13. 10C-Jeremy Campbell[11]; 14. 68-Taylor Milton[13]; 15. 63-Jack Thomas[14]; 16. 16G-Austyn Gossel[17]; 17. 88C-Brogan Carder[18]; 18. 3-Cole Schroeder[19]; 19. 70K-Henry Rogers[20]; 20. 88J-Jeremy Huish[15]
