SAPULPA, Okla. — Sam Hafertepe Jr. left Creek County Speedway proving to everyone why he is a seven-time American Sprint Car Series champion.
The Sunnyvale, Texas, veteran performed when the lights shone brightest Saturday night for the season-ending Fuzzy’s Fall Fling with a daring last-lap pass for his seventh win of the 2026 season.
At the start, Garrett Benson jumped to the lead from the outside as Alex Sewell followed in tow. Behind them, Hafertepe and his title rival Matt Covington began their ascent up the leaderboard, with Covington setting the pace while Benson kept Sewell on the bottom lane.
As lapped traffic held Benson and Sewell from extending the gap from the top five, Covington used the slower cars to help him move up to fifth on Lap 7 while Hafertepe stayed behind the No. 95 Triple X Chassis.
When the halfway flags were shown, Sewell made his move for the lead by running the middle lane to get to the outside of Benson across the backstretch, then held it through Turns 3-4 as Hafertepe and Covington continued to chip away at the two-second lead the leaders held.
With the leaders in sight, Hafertepe took his chance at Covington by moving his No. 15H to the cushion and outran Covington to join the podium step with 14 laps left.
As Hafertepe stalked the leaders within the final 10 laps, Benson returned to the top spot by moving Sewell up from the bottom lane, then squeezed his car underneath the No. 9 machine to retake the top spot with six laps to go.
Hafertepe did not waste his opportunity for the win as he continued to build momentum around the cushion of the quarter-mile track. With two laps left, Hafertepe passed Sewell for second place. On the white flag, Hafertepe reached the outside of Benson exiting Turn 2, then secured the lead in Turns 3-4 to earn his 95th series win.
With the victory, Hafertepe clinched the title by 41 points over Covington, padding the all-time ASCS National Tour championship record with his seventh triumph.
“Early in the race, I was like, ‘OK, we don’t have to do a whole lot.’” Hafertepe said. “So I was like, ‘I’ll just ride around and not force anything,’ because at a track like this, it’s easy to make a mistake and bike it. So if I did that, I’d ruin all my chances. When Matt got by me, I just needed to pace him.
“We got by a couple more guys, and then when we got to the leaders, I was like ‘Man, I can’t keep following these guys,’ and I found something on the top because the bottom of (Turns) 3-4 was slowly starting to go away. I finally got in my head and thought, ‘I didn’t come here to ride. I don’t want to win the championship just by pacing.’ We wanted to do it like a champion.”
Benson and Sewell ended the 40-lap battle with a podium appearance. Covington finished fourth, and Steven Shebester completed the final group of top five finishers from the 2026 season.
The finish:
Feature (40 Laps): 1. 15H-Sam Hafertepe Jr[8]; 2. 2B-Garrett Benson[2]; 3. 8-Alex Sewell[5]; 4. 95-Matt Covington[15]; 5. 16S-Steven Shebester[19]; 6. 52-Blake Hahn[4]; 7. 71T-Christopher Townsend[9]; 8. 23-Seth Bergman[18]; 9. 2P-Chase Porter[7]; 10. 2-Gage Laney[12]; 11. 45X-Kyler Johnson[23]; 12. 7M-Chance Morton[21]; 13. 3-Cole Schroeder[11]; 14. 16G-Austyn Gossel[16]; 15. 88C-Brogan Carder[13]; 16. 8M-Kade Morton[22]; 17. 7F-Joshua Tyre[24]; 18. 9$-Kyle Clark[1]; 19. 31-Casey Wills[25]; 20. 23H-Sam Henderson[6]; 21. 88-Terry Easum[14]; 22. 1-Sean McClelland[20]; 23. 88R-Ryder Laplante[3]; 24. 50Z-Zach Chappell[10]; 25. 938-Bradley Fezard[17]
