MESQUITE, Texas — Blake Hahn used traffic to his advantage to take the lead and sweep the 49th annual Devil’s Bowl Winter Nationals with the Lucas Oil American Sprint Car Series presented by the MAVTV Motorsports Network.
“It was a night where running second was the better place to be. Chase was faster, especially in clean air, but once we got to traffic, that let us get in and try to make something happen. It just worked out where we hit lapped cars at the right time where I could get the run and not give him a chance to move his line,” said Hahn.
Riding fifth at the start of the feature, the lead was in the hands of Chase Randall. Caution with one lap officially complete, Randall was chased by Sam Hafertepe Jr., who worked top of three and four, and bottom of one and two while the Bush’s Chicken No. 9 ran the gutter. Stopped on lap three as Scott Bogucki and Matt Covington went over racing for third, Chase again kept Sam at bay as chased.
Pulling away quickly, Randall took a nearly 1.5-second advantage into traffic. Blocked on the bottom, that allowed Hafertepe and Hahn to begin closing. On the back bumper of the No. 9 on Lap 11, Sam rolled to the lead on lap 12 by .016 seconds.
Not able to get to the bottom before Randall, that put the No. 15h in the slick and allowed Blake Hahn to race by for second. Going to work on the leader, the battle would pause working lap 14 for a car spun off the top of the track.
Back to lap 13, Chase immediately began putting distance on the Sage Fruit Co. No. 52. Taking his advantage to 2.341 seconds with five laps to run, traffic was about to become a factor.
Finding the back of the pack with two laps to go, Randall stuck to the bottom as Hahn shot to the top of turns three and four. Using the slower car as a pick, Blake took over the point at the wave of the white flag.
Keeping Randall in the rearview through the final revolution, Hahn made it to the line with .881 seconds to spare. Randall, in second, was followed to the line by Wayne Johnson, who took advantage of the lap-13 restart to overtake the No. 15h.
Hafertepe ended up fourth, with Steven Shebester moving up four spots to land his first career National Tour top five.
A field of 49 drivers was in attendance Saturday night. The overall quick qualifier was Matt Covington, with a 15.386-second lap.Â
The finish:
Feature (25 Laps): 1. 52-Blake Hahn[4]; 2. 9-Chase Randall[1]; 3. 2C-Wayne Johnson[6]; 4. 15H-Sam Hafertepe Jr[2]; 5. 23X-Steven Shebester[9]; 6. 47X-Dylan Westbrook[7]; 7. 44-Chris Martin[14]; 8. 36-Jason Martin[13]; 9. 50Z-Zach Chappell[18]; 10. 55B-Brandon Anderson[11]; 11. 187-Landon Crawley[24]; 12. 10-Landon Britt[23]; 13. 45X-Kyler Johnson[10]; 14. 44M-Cameron Martin[8]; 15. 10P-Dylan Postier[16]; 16. 55-Danny Wood[19]; 17. 87-Tim Crawley[21]; 18. 9X-Liam Martin[20]; 19. 7M-Chance Morton[22]; 20. 75X-JT Imperial[15]; 21. 95-Matt Covington[3]; 22. 84-Scott Bogucki[5]; 23. 11-Roger Crockett[17]; 24. 12H-Tony Bruce Jr[12]
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