LEFFLER STRUGGLES AT THE MILWAUKEE MILE BUT IS STILL ABLE TO SUSTAIN TOP 10 STRING

The sign of a good team in any sport is to produce decent results when you’re not playing well. Jason Leffler and his Great Clips/Dollar General/Northeastern Supply race team proved that during the running of Saturday night’s Northern Tools.com 250, NASCAR Nationwide Series event at the famed Milwaukee Mile in West Allis, WI.

Based on his practice effort, Leffler’s Toyota was looked upon by many observers, including fellow drivers, as the car to beat. Once the race began, however, Jason’s machine ran tight; a condition that his Scott Zipadelli-led crew was unable to correct and it removed him from contention for his first victory of the 2009 campaign.

Despite the pitfalls, Leffler hung tough and was still able to carve out a tenth place finish to sustain his current string of top ten finishes that has now reached 10 races in a row and 12 of the last 13 starts for the lead driver in the Braun Racing camp.

“I couldn’t believe how tight the car ran tonight,” a disappointed Leffler said after the race. “Scott tried everything, but nothing really worked, and that gave us no shot to run with guys like Carl (Edwards), Busch (Kyle) and Brian (Keselowski). Then we had that incident with the lapped car and that only made things worse. But I’m happy to at least get a top ten finish to keep our streak alive,” he added.

The incident Leffler was referring to came on lap 120 when he was running in the eighth position (the same spot in which he qualified) and tried to get around the lapped machine driven by Shelby Howard in turn 2.

Frustrated that Howard was holding him up, Leffler darted inside of Howard’s Chevrolet, drove past him and then slightly misjudged the distance he had cleared Howard’s #70 by. As he made the pass and attempted to turn ahead of Howard, the latter’s left front fender caught Leffler’s right rear fender and opened it up like a can opener. The damage sustained by Leffler’s Toyota ended up hurting the handling characteristics of the #38 machine even more making Jason’s attempt to score a top ten finish that much more difficult.

He caught a break of sort’s four laps later when the race’s very first caution flag waved after Trevor Bayne’s Toyota grazed the outside retaining wall, allowing the lead lap cars to pit for the very first time under yellow flag conditions.

It enabled Leffler’s crew to make some repairs to his car as well as some adjustments to help get the tightness out of the car and give Jason a car that he could drive hard into each corner and start passing cars. The #38 re-started the race on lap 127 in the 11th position.

It took Jason just five laps to move back into the top ten and then up two spots to eighth in just 10 more circuits around the Milwaukee Mile’s flat oval, a position that Leffler would hold for the next 53 laps when the second caution period occurred for debris on the track on lap 195 of the 250-lap affair.

The 10 cars on the lead lap pitted for the final time a lap later with the #38 coming out in the same position he went in, eighth, and when the #5 Chevrolet driven by Scott Wimmer was penalized for speeding on pit road, Leffler re-started in seventh which was to be the highest he would get to the leaders the remainder of the race.

In fact, the tightness got so bad for Jason following his final pit stop that he spent the rest of the race fighting off cars wanting to improve their positions and three of them (the Chevy driven by Ron Hornaday, the Ford of rookie sensation Ricky Stenhouse, Jr. and the Chevy of veteran Mike Bliss) all were able to get by bouncing the #38 out of the top ten and in danger of ending his streak with just 40 laps left.

Running 12th and having to work his tail off to get past the cars of Aric Almirola and Bliss, Leffler got up on top of the wheel. On lap 222, Jason got past Almirola and followed Bliss around Hornaday’s fading Chevy to take the 9th position.

Unfortunately, Jason lost two of those positions on the track when he ran up on the slowing car driven by Brad Coleman and got into the back of the latter’s car and sent it spinning into the outside wall. It enabled the Brendan Gaughan and Almirola cars to get back around the #38 with just a handful of laps to go.

But Jason refused to wilt and battled back, re-passing both Gaughan and Almirola to take the ninth berth. Only a late charge by Hornaday on the final lap, moving Jason back a spot to tenth, hindered Leffler’s game effort. “I only wish we could have been racing for the win instead of tenth place,” is all Jason could say.

Veteran Edwards charged from the back of the pack to pass the race’s most dominant car driven by Busch with less than 20 laps to go to win for the first time this season. Rounding out the top five finishers were Busch, Keselowski (his third straight third place finish), rookie Erik Darnell and Stenhouse, Jr.

Leffler’s tenth place effort enabled him to hold onto fourth place in the championship driver’s point’s battle; 46 tallies behind third place Keselowski but 267 points better than the fifth place driver, young Joey Logano, who did not compete in Milwaukee.

Leffler will try and get back to his top five running form next week when the racing action moves to another flat mile race track in Loudon, New Hampshire next Saturday afternoon. The Camping World RV Sales 200 will be televised live on ESPN2 with coverage beginning at 2:30 p.m