EARLY-RACE CRASHES END DAY EARLY FOR TWO NORTHEASTERN SUPPLY COMPANY SPONSORED RACE CARS IN LAS VEGAS

Early race accidents ended the high hopes of both Jason Leffler and Brian Vickers Saturday afternoon during the running of the Sam’s Town 300 NASCAR Nationwide Series race at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway.

Leffler, driving the #38 Great Clips/Dollar General/Northeastern Supply Company Toyota, was running in the middle of the 43-car field on lap 11 when the Dodge driven by Kyle Krisiloff began to spin all by himself in turn 4.

Krisiloff’s car hit the outside retaining wall and then began its descent down the banking when it clipped the right rear quarter panel of Leffler’s car sending the #38 Toyota spinning and hard into the outside wall badly damaging both cars.

Vickers, driving Braun Racing’s #32 Dollar General/Northeastern Supply Company Toyota, grabbed the pole with a great qualifying effort earlier in the day and was a definite contender for the win. Running fifth on lap 62, Vickers came off of the second turn and slammed into the fence, later explaining that he had no brakes as he tried to get off of the corner and down the back stretch.

“The brake pedal just went to the floor. I had no indication that there was a problem before that and it’s just a shame because I had a car capable of winning this race,” a disappointed Vickers said in finishing 36th after leading the race for eight laps.

The Northeastern Supply Company will continue being an associate sponsor of the #32 race car this season that will have several different NASCAR Sprint Cup drivers behind the wheel in addition. Northeastern will continue its full-season support of Leffler and his #38 Toyota in the remaining 32 races this season.

The incident involving Leffler and Krisiloff ended the latter’s day, but Leffler’s Braun Racing team worked hard making repairs to his race car in an effort to get him back onto the race track to possibly gain a few spots. The strategy worked even though the 35 additional laps Leffler was able to run late in the race only enabled him to better his finish by three spots to 39th.

“I thought I had Krisiloff’s car cleared but just got clipped in the right rear and that was it,” a frustrated Leffler said as last year’s third place finisher in the championship driver’s points slipped eight spots in this year’s standing after three races to 17th – 190 behind season-long point’s leader Tony Stewart who also was eliminated during the race and finished 27th.

“We didn’t qualify well but kind of had the tire situation worked out that could have put us in contention late in the race - especially since so many good cars had problems today,” said Leffler. The combination of a very hard outside tire and a very slick race track, especially in the fourth turn, played havoc throughout the race with accidents due to tire-caused spins eliminating more than a dozen cars.

Eventual race winner Mark Martin was running third with five laps remaining when he drove into the rear end of the Ford driven by 2007 Nationwide Series champion Carl Edwards while the latter was challenging Brian Keselowski for the lead. Martin’s hit started Edwards’ car spinning and he collected Keselowski’s Chevrolet in the process.

Keselowski’s machine was too badly damaged to continue and was credited with a 23rd place finish while Edwards, despite heavy damage to his mount, was able to continue and finished 14th.

Martin’s victory was the long-time NASCAR Sprint Cup driving veteran’s 48th of his Nationwide Series’ career. Greg Biffle, Clint Bowyer, Kevin Harvick and David Stremme rounded out the top five finishers.

Leffler will try and earn his first top ten finish of 2008 next Saturday afternoon when the Nationwide Series moves to the Atlanta Motor Speedway for the running of the Nicorette 300. ESPN2 will again televise the race live beginning at 1:30 p.m.