Despite a loose race car and problems on re-starts, Jason Leffler was able to maintain his current streak of top 10 finishes with a 6th place run Saturday night in the Meijer 200, NASCAR Nationwide Series test at the Kentucky Speedway in Sparta, KY.

A third place performance by Brad Keselowski, however, enabled the latter to move ahead of Leffler and into third place in the Championship Driver’s Point’s Standing after 14 of this season’s 35 scheduled races. Jason had held the third spot through the last five outings as he finished in the top 10 in his last eight races heading into Kentucky and in 10 of the previous 11.

“We weren’t very good on re-starts tonight,” said Leffler who had started his #38 Great Clips/Dollar General/Northeastern Supply Toyota Camry in the 11th position. “The car just ran really loose pretty much the whole night, and I had a hard time holding off other fast race cars during re-starts, particularly near the end,” he added.

Thanks to some tire strategy employed by Crew Chief Scott Zipadelli during a pit stop on lap 72 following the race’s third caution period, Leffler vaulted six spots in the driving order to 4th when the race was re-started on lap 74. When the cars driven by eventual race winner Joey Logano and Keselowski were both penalized for speeding infractions on pit road during their respective pit stops on lap 72, Leffler was second when the race went back to green and held the position for the next 56 laps.

Jason remained third until another yellow flag flew on lap 164 after which all but one of the lead lap cars pitted for the final time for fresh tires and some adjustments on lap 165. The #38 came out of the pits fourth behind leader Brendan Gaughan, who was the only driver electing not to pit during that final stop. Busch, who led the most laps for the seventh consecutive race, was second and the sensational Logano, who like Busch was driving a Toyota out of the Joe Gibbs Racing stable, was third.

Busch and Logano were able to bypass Gaughan’s Chevrolet in just a couple of laps after the re-start with the latter eventually losing control of his car, with older rubber on it, in turn 4 to bring out the race’s last caution flag on lap 170. Leffler narrowly missed making contact with Gaughan’s spinning machine to move back into third on the grid.

That would be the last time that the #38 would appear in the top 5 when after the race resumed on lap 174, Leffler was under heavy attack by a gaggle of cars behind him eyeing to improve their positions.

Keselowski and rookie Justin Allgaier, running for Penske Racing, moved around Leffler first, dropping the 38 back to sixth. Several laps later the Chevrolet of Mike Bliss tried to get by the #38 in a side-by-side by battle in turn four only to have Bliss lose control of his machine trying to drive underneath Leffler. Bliss’ car would eventually crash hard into the outside retaining wall spilling fluid all over the racing surface and forcing NASCAR to red flag the race on lap 184.

Following the resumption of the race on lap 185, Leffler’s race car again faltered on the restart on lap 189 with the Toyota driven by rookie Michael Arnett sweeping past the Great Clips Camry for seventh. Only some determined, on-top-of-the-wheel work by Leffler over the few remaining laps enabled the #38 to regain the sixth place berth from Arnett’s #15 at the start-finish line on the final lap to recapture the six points Jason would have lost had he finished seventh.

“We did the best we could under the circumstances,” Jason said. “I don’t know if it was the tires or the car, but we never could get the car tightened up the way we needed to contend,” he added.

Logano and Busch swapped the lead nearly 10 times during the race with Logano getting his #20 Toyota around Busch’s #18 just after the final re-start and running away to a 10-car victory, his second of the 2009 campaign. Busch, Keselowski, Gaughan and Allgaier rounded out the top five finishers with Gaughan actually catching a break following his spin with 30 laps remaining.

Gaughan was able to pit and put on a new set of tires during his subsequent pit stop after the front stretch incident, and with fresh rubber underneath him, Gaughan was able to bypass six cars over those final few laps to earn his fourth place finish.

With Carl Edwards having a miserable evening with an ill-handling race car, and then losing several laps as a result of two pit road speeding violations that forced Edwards to twice honor drive through penalties down pit road, Busch increased his lead over Edwards to 137 points in the championship point’s battle. Busch will seek to increase that advantage next Saturday night at the famed Milwaukee Mile in Greenfield, WI.

Leffler, on the other hand, will be out to at least reclaim third place with yet another top ten effort in a race that is scheduled to take the green flag at 8:30 p.m. EDT. ESPN2 will televise the race live.

Jason trails the now third place Keselowski by just 10 points heading into the Milwaukee test and is but 218 tallies behind leader Busch.