LATE GAMBLE PAYS OFF FOR LEFFLER AND TEAM AT DOVER; HELPS THEM MAINTAIN TOP 10 STREAK IN HELUVA GOOD 200

All season long, driver Jason Leffler has credited the changes made in key positions at Braun Racing over the winter in making his #38 Great Clips/Dollar General/Northeastern Supply Toyota Camry more competitive in 2009. That was proven out again Saturday during the running of the Heluva Good 200 NASCAR Nationwide Series race at Dover International Speedway in Delaware and with several hundred Northeastern Supply customers and officials in attendance.

Forced to start the race from the rear of the 43-car field following a disappointing 23rd place qualifying effort and then because of the need to change a broken suspension part, Leffler started the race with a chip on his shoulder. His streak of top 10 finishes was in jeopardy as well as his third place standing in championship driver points after the year’s first 11 races.

With new Crew Chief Scott Zipadelli taking charge, the team worked to improve the race car with every opportunity. The first task was to replace the broken track bar bolt that was discovered during final adjustments shortly before the start of the race. That might have been part of the problem the crew had in giving Leffler the “feel” he wanted in the car during practice and very well could have been the primary reason for the disappointing time trial effort.

From the drop of the green flag, the #38 Toyota began working its way towards the front, indicating that suspension issue was solved.

In just the first eight laps, Leffler improved 10 positions to 31st on the grid and 11 laps later was 21st. He broke into the top 20 for the first time on lap 22 and moved onto the scoring trylon at the Monster Mile for the first time in 15th place on lap 36. Credit the chassis and tire pressure adjustments the Zipadelli-directed crew made with every pit stop to get the car even better.

The best position on the track that Leffler was able to achieve during the first 100 laps was 13th where the #38 sat on lap 83 when a gaggle of faster cars fought for position. One of the cars in that pack was the lapped machine driven by rookie Mark Davis who was on the backstretch when the attacking pack surrounded him. Immediately behind Davis was Leffler, and when Davis appeared to get out of the gas for an instant in turn three, the #38 nudged Davis in the rear and sent Davis’ Camry spinning up the track.

The nose on Leffler’s car was slightly damaged during the incident, hurting the handling characteristics and preventing Jason to continue to improve his position. During a caution period pit stop on lap 131 with the #38 showing 14th on the grid, Zipadelli brought Leffler in a second time to have the nose repaired with tape to get the car to handle better. It worked!

Re-starting 20th on lap 138, Jason improved five positions to 15th when the race’s seventh yellow flag waved after the cars of David Ragan and Kevin Harvick got together in turn three on lap 144. The race re-started again on lap 150 and it took just eight more laps for the #38 to pick off three more cars to move into 12th and closer to that targeted top ten spot, but he was going to need some help to make that happen.

On lap 163 on yet another caution period, Zipadelli took the biggest gamble of the day by bringing Jason in for a quick pit stop to put on fresh tires while the majority of the other lead-lap cars remained on the race track choosing track position over speed.

Just 34 laps remained when the green flag again waved, and that is when Jason went on another tear, moving to 11th by lap 175. He remained in that spot for the next few laps but began closing in on the machines driven by Scott Wimmer, Brendan Gaughan and Jason Keller, finally getting around all three on successive laps to move into the top ten for the first time.

Aided by the fresher rubber on his car, Leffler was eighth and had a legitimate shot at overtaking the cars driven by Paul Menard and Scott Speed just ahead of him over the final 10 laps only to lose that chance when Wimmer’s Chevrolet blew a tire coming down the front stretch on lap 191 to again bring out yet another caution flag. It took most of the remaining laps to clean the debris off of the race track leaving NASCAR no other choice but to end the race on a green/white/checker finish. Jason just ran out of laps and had to settle for eighth but it did extend his top ten streak to seven races and his ninth in the last 10 events.

“We had a lot of work to do today, and I’m proud of my guys for how they responded and to help us rally there at the end to keep our streak in tact,” Leffler said. “Scott made the right call to come in for tires when no one else did, and I know I had the chance to chase down the 99 (Speed) and the 98 (Menard) if I had the laps, but that last caution just ruined it for us. I’m really happy, though, to come away with another good finish and to do it in front of all the folks from the Northeastern Supply. We earned it and I hoped they enjoyed it,” he added.

The finish enabled Jason to remain third in the driver point’s standing, 153 behind leader Kyle Busch who dominated the second half of the race and was leading on that green/white/checker finish only to cut down a tire and end up 20th.

Two drivers chasing Leffler in the point’s race, Brad Keselowski and teenage sensation Joey Logano, managed to bypass Busch and finish 1-2, respectively, cutting into Leffler’s point edge. Jason will take a 13-point advantage on fourth place Logano into next Saturday night’s second race of the 2009 season at the Nashville Superspeedway in Lebanon, TN.

Leffler leads the fifth place Keselowski by 20 heading into this weekend’s race that is scheduled to begin TV coverage on ESPN2 at 7 p.m. EDT. Jason hopes to better the sixth place finish he posted in the first Nashville race back in early April.