Bubak Seeking A Big Sky Hat Trick With ASCS

BILLINGS, Mont. — For each part of the country the American Sprint Car Series visits, there’s at least one driver from the region that contends with the national touring stars lap-after-lap for the win.

This weekend, the ASCS National Tour’s best take on the two-time and defending winner of the richest motorsports event in the state of Montana – Jake Bubak.

The 30-year-old open-wheel standout from Arvada, Colo., has banked more than $24,000 in the past two years, winning Big Sky Speedway’s marquee sprint car event that salutes one of its founding members — the Harvey Ostermiller Memorial.

Bubak aims to become the race’s only three-time winner.

“It’s neat to say we’ve won that race twice,” Bubak said. “The list of drivers who have won it is pretty stout, so being on that is nice. Anytime you can win a race that’s over $10,000-to-win, it definitely helps our team and helps me. It’d be a big bonus.”

This year, the two-day event features an upgraded $15,000-to-win, $1,200-to-start purse and pits the nation’s best 360 sprint car racers against the best of the ASCS Frontier Region.

Bubak claimed victory in 2023 under the sole banner of the Frontier Region before backing it up and defeating the national series stars one year ago.

“I don’t get to race near as often as a lot of those guys, and I’ve never traveled with a touring series nationally or anything like that,” Bubak said. “So, when we’re able to compete with Sam (Hafertepe) and Seth (Bergman) and Matt Covington and Jason Martin and all those guys, it definitely makes us feel good.”

While Bubak does not align himself with any one series to race throughout the year, he’s become one of the Rocky Mountain State’s best exports in dirt track racing in his climb from out of the local 305 Sprint Car ranks.

Starting in 2011, Bubak began chasing the Kansas-based United Rebel Sprint Series and competing at his home track of Dodge City Speedway.

After hoisting three-straight URSS championships from 2013–2015, Bubak transitioned to the 360 ranks and has made his mark in ASCS competition, winning multiple races with the ASCS Sooner Region and the former ASCS Warrior Region.

In 2017, he broke through for his first national ASCS win at West Texas Raceway before following up with consecutive wins at WaKeeney Speedway in 2022 and 2023 and a preliminary feature score in the 2023 Hockett/McMillin Memorial.

 

Bubak’s most recent ASCS National Tour triumph came in the Ostermiller Memorial at Big Sky last year, topping touring stars Zach Blurton, Bergman, and Hafertepe. Hafertepe drove to 12 wins in national ASCS competition last year and has nine in the first 18 races so far this season.

Last weekend, Hafertepe and Bubak crossed the finish line one–two at WaKeeney Speedway after a high-speed chase through lapped traffic around the four-tenths-mile Kansas dirt track.

Though Hafertepe came out on top after passing for the lead at the halfway point, and Bubak was disqualified for weighing light at the scales post-race, the race gave a preview of what Big Sky Speedway fans can expect from the two drivers this weekend.

“I feel the last couple of years, we’ve been able to give Sam a run for his money pretty much anywhere we go,” Bubak said. “He’s so good in a 360, so knowing that we can compete with him and run with him, it definitely shows that our program is on the right track.”

Bubak has made only six starts at Big Sky in his career but said he feels at home racing the three-eighths-mile track, which sits more than 550 miles north of his house.

“It’s a lot like racing where I grew up in Western Kansas,” Bubak said. “It’s really slick and dry and windy. It just kinda fits what we’ve always done with our cars and how I like to drive.”

Bubak has bested the national touring stars at the track before. He knows the winning formula. If he can score victory once more in the finale Saturday night, he’ll pocket $15,000 in cash and bragging rights as victor of the richest event in Montana motorsports history.

“That’s the whole reason we’re going, thinking that we can win it,” Bubak said. “It’s a good group of guys. We’ve just gotta do our job and qualify well. If you can qualify well and get in that Dash, you know you’re going to start in the first two or three rows, which makes your job a lot easier.”

Every lap of ASCS National Tour competition can be streamed live throughout the season with a DIRTvision subscription.