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CONCORD, N.C. — Sam Hafertepe Jr. has become one of 360 sprint car racing’s most accomplished drivers over the last decade.
A record five American Sprint Car Series National Tour championships forefront his résumé, and he’s already made more history four races into the 2025 season.
Hafertepe, 39, of Sunnyvale, Texas, captured the 79th checkered flag of his career with the ASCS National Tour last Saturday at Salina Highbanks Speedway, which tied him with fellow five-time Tour champion Jason Johnson for second-most on the all-time feature wins list.
He only trails four-time Tour champion Gary Wright, who amassed 128 National Tour wins during his 20-plus-year career racing ASCS events.
“Definitely never thought we’d get to where we are today, just never really thought of it that way,” Hafertepe said. “I’m definitely not done. I feel like we’ve got a long way to go. I’m only 39, and to accomplish what we’ve accomplished already, the sky’s the limit.”
Compared to traditional milestone recognition in sports, 79 is not a number typically commemorated. But No. 79 for Hafertepe and the Hill’s Racing Team is significant because of the accomplishment they’ve now matched with two of the best in ASCS history.
“[Johnson] changed the game for 360 racing at that time,” Hafertepe said. “You had Gary Wright’s deal, kind of a low-buck deal, and he got by. He had sponsor help, he had things like that, but he was winning with a lot less. Jason Johnson kinda took all that to the next level and made it really professional.
“He made 360 racing grow to where it is today — just a more professional look. Jason was able to do that better than anybody that had ever done it.”
Though they both had lengthy careers in sprint car racing, Johnson and Hafertepe only sporadically competed with one another. While Hafertepe chased the World of Outlaws NOS Energy Drink Sprint Car Series circuit in the late 2000s, Johnson continued his climb up the national 360 ranks with ASCS, winning his first two championships in 2008 and 2010 and notching runner-up finishes in the championship standings in 2006, 2007 and 2009.
When Hafertepe scaled back from the national 410 sprint car ranks at the turn of the 2010s in favor of a more local/regional schedule, he took on the full ASCS National Tour in 2014 and raced alongside Johnson, who was in his final season of 360 competition.
Johnson won his fifth and final championship that season before making the jump to the full-time World of Outlaws roster the following year.
They raced only that one season alongside each other before Johnson’s death in 2018, but Hafertepe had already taken so much from Johnson and the legacy he left behind.
“It has elevated everything,” Hafertepe said. “As far as the equipment we have to have, the operations, the amount of crew guys teams have to have. It never was like that, and it just gave it a new approach. I know what we have to have to be successful, and it’s mainly because we’ve done it before.
“I feel like [Jason] coming along back then when he did and making his operation so much more professional than everybody else’s, I feel like that really turned the tables for all of 360 racing.”
After Johnson’s exit from the 360 ranks, Hafertepe took over, dominating ASCS with 48 National Tour wins and five consecutive championships from 2016 to 2020. Though those years are in the past, the numbers still surprise him.
“I never knew where that would be, never thought where we might end up; I never knew any of those things,” Hafertepe said. “I just knew when we did start running ASCS after coming off the road for several years that my goal was to win. We were ready to win at that time, and we just kinda had to put forth the effort and the time that it took.
“When we did that, it paid huge dividends — the years that I raced out on the road with the Outlaws. Racing Pennsylvania and Ohio with the All Stars and traveling as much as we did, it really propelled us to be able to come back and race on the ASCS circuit, with the experience that I gained, it propelled us to be able to win all those races.”
Like he’s previously echoed, Hafertepe still feels like he’s got plenty left to go in his career. Now, his attention turns to win No. 80, which will give him sole control of No. 2 on the all-time National Tour wins list. He’ll get his first chance at that this Friday and Saturday, April 25–26 at RPM Speedway in Crandall, Texas.
The quarter-mile track is located approximately 25 miles Southeast of Dallas and only 20 miles from his home in Sunnyvale, making it his new home track after the closing of Devil’s Bowl Speedway in 2023. Hafertepe won the last Tour race there in October and will aim for a tiebreaking win No. 80 in the two-day event there next weekend.
“The biggest comfort I get is it’s only 20 miles for us,” Hafertepe said. “It’s unheard of for us to race that close to home, so that’s the coolest thing. A lot of friends and family do come out; it makes it easier for them to come out when it’s only 20 miles away.
“It’s just a pretty cool place to go to because it’s so close to home and we have been pretty competitive there every time we’ve went. I feel like it’s just another one of those places like, when you race at home, you like to get comfortable at places, and Devil’s Bowl was that place for us for so many years. We won a lot of races there. And now, hopefully, RPM can be that place for us.”
