LEFFLER SCRATCHES HIS WAY TO 21ST PLACE MEXICO CITY FINISH WHILE MEXICAN TEAMMATE MICHEL JOURDAIN, JR. EXITS RACE EARLY

Road racing was the order of the day for Sunday afternoon’s NASCAR Nationwide Series race at the Autodromo Hermosa Rodriguez in Mexico City, and it turned out to be a mixed bag for Braun Racing’s two entries.

Regular Jason Leffler had to fight his way from near the very back of the 43-car starting field to carve out a respectable but unspectacular 21st place finish in the 80-lap race around the 2.518-mile, 7-turn course located on what were the grounds for the 1964 Olympic Games. One-time teammate and Mexico City native Michel Jourdain, Jr. also ran for Braun Racing but only completed 39 laps en route to a disappointing 36th place finish.

Leffler started his #38 Great Clips/Dollar General/Northeastern Supply Toyota in the 36th position after a difficult qualifying run on Friday but quickly started moving forward from the drop of the green flag in near perfect weather conditions in the fourth consecutive NASCAR Nationwide Series trek to Mexico for the teams.

The #38 was showing in the 25th position on lap 35 when the caution and ultimate red flags were displayed within minutes of each other following an incident involving the cars of David Reutimann and rookie Kevin O’Connell.

When the race re-started four laps later, someone failed to come up to speed at the drop of the green flag, forcing a host of cars to put on the brakes to avoid hitting the car in front of them or to take evasive action. Jourdain, a road racing standout with two Champ Car victories to his credit but who was making his first start in the Series this year and who was brought in to run Braun Racing’s #32 Toyota because of his strength on this particular race course, was one of the cars victimized by the stop-and-go re-start.

Jourdain rammed into the back of another car when the Ford driven by eventual second place finishing driver Marcus Ambrose drove off the track and raised a huge cloud of dust that blinded a gaggle of cars that were coming to the start-finish line to take the green to re-start the event. The dust that covered most of the track and field of cars, combined with the cars that failed to come up to speed, resulted in several cars sustaining damage to their machines.

The damage to the front end of Jourdain’s Visit Durango/Visit Mexico Toyota Camry race car was too severe to fix, however, and he ended his day in the garage after just 39 laps.

Leffler, on the other, was pretty fortunate during the race, staying free of most of the other incidents on the track. At one point of the race, when the leaders began making their only pit stops of the race, Leffler moved up to as high at 10th on the board, but following his stop on lap 41 for tires and fuel, Leffler found himself racing for position from the 25th spot again, one he would improve upon by four by race’s end to complete the 21st place effort.

“I’m not a road racer, so our goal, starting from near the rear of the field, was to make up as many positions as we could without going off course too severely and keeping the fenders on the car,” said Leffler. “We ran pretty much where we expected to and will gladly take this one as we head to Talladega next weekend,” added Leffler who still managed to improve his position in the Championship Driver Points Standings by one to 8th after eight of this season’s 35 scheduled races.

Red-hot Kyle Busch passed the race’s dominant car, a Dodge driven by road racing standout Scott Pruett, with less than 15 laps to go to capture his third consecutive victory on the circuit and to narrow his point disadvantage to leader Clint Bowyer to just 66 heading to Talladega next Saturday afternoon. Following Busch across the start-finish line in order were Tasmania’s Ambrose, Pruett, defending Series’ champion Carl Edwards and Patrick Carpenter.

Next Saturday’s Aaron’s 312 will be televised live by ABC beginning at 3:30 EDT.