LEFFLER HAS MOST CONSISTENT RACE WEEKEND OF 2008 SEASON; QUALIFIES 3RD AND FINISHES STRONG 4TH IN WILD TALLADEGA TEST

Jason Leffler enjoyed his most consistent weekend of the still young, 2008 NASCAR Nationwide Series race season Saturday when he finished a very strong fourth in the wild Aaron’s 312 at the Talladega Superspeedway in Alabama.

Leffler qualified his #38 Great Clips/Dollar General/Northeastern Supply Company Toyota Camry in the third position and then proceeded to race pretty much all day with the leaders in the race that was interrupted by two major wrecks including the “Big One” that involved 16 cars.

Leffler qualified his #38 Great Clips/Dollar General/Northeastern Supply Company Toyota Camry in the third position and then proceeded to race pretty much all day with the leaders in the race that was interrupted by two major wrecks including the “Big One” that involved 16 cars.

“I had a great car all day but few of us could get enough help to overtake Tony (Stewart),” Leffler said. “We’re getting closer and it won’t be long before we taste Victory Lane this year,” he promised.

Leffler did drop back to as far as 26th on the track on lap 66 of the 117 run when he lost a number of positions in the pits during a routine pit stop when one of his front tires rolled out of his team’s pit. Cars must remain in their pits until all tires have been moved to the pit wall and Leffler had to wait several seconds while the errant tire was retrieved.

That actually turned out to be a blessing for Leffler who was running towards the rear of the field when 16 cars were caught up in a wild incident in the first turn when the Ford driven by Carl Edwards slammed into the back of the car driven by Kevin Lepage who was exiting pit road after being forced to pit with a flat tire.

Lepage was running below the yellow blend line as he is supposed to as the front of the field approached the first turn. Edwards was running behind the car driven by Steven Wallace when the latter darted up the track to avoid Lepage’s slower machine. Edwards never saw the car and almost went airborne when he rammed into Lepage’s Chevrolet igniting the melee that eliminated a half dozen cars and badly damaged 10 others. Running behind this group, Leffler was able to slow down and avoid the carnage, sneaking through and ending up 12th in the field when the race was red flagged for nearly 20 minutes while the track was cleaned up.

From that point, Leffler began to work his way back towards the front, improving six spots in just four laps and into a pack of nine cars that fought for the win over the final 10 laps.

Leffler’s teammate, Denny Hamlin, was also a front-running car early in the race but exited with a broken rear end after just 47 laps.

Leffler’s solid run enabled him to hold onto eighth place in the driver’s championship point’s race but now trails point leader Clint Bowyer by just 200 points as Nationwide Series action moves to the action-packed, ¾-mile tri-oval at the Richmond International Raceway next Friday night. The Circuit City 250 is set to get the green flag at 7:30 Friday with ESPN2 televising the race live to the nation.