He’d Love to Pick Up First Win in Bakersfield

On July 30, 1994, NASCAR conducted a demonstration race at Mesa Marin Raceway in Bakersfield for trucks, an experiment that led to the Craftsman Truck series.

PJ Jones won that race in a Ford F-150 owned by Frank “Scoop” Vessels, one of the four founders of the truck series. Another was Jim Smith, a businessman-industrialist from Orange.

Working on Jones’ crew that Saturday was Jason Leffler, an 18-year-old family friend from Long Beach and aspiring midget car driver.

Leffler, now driving a Dodge truck for Smith’s Ultra Motorsports team, will be back at Mesa Marin this week looking for his first truck win in a tumultuous career during which he has driven in Winston Cup, Busch Grand National, the Indy 500 and U.S. Auto Club open-wheel events, even though he is only 27.

Sunday’s Lucas Oil 250 will be Leffler’s 24th race in a truck. He hasn’t won yet, but he has sat on the pole nine times, including last month’s Daytona race, and has finished second six times.

“One of these days, things will go right for me and we’ll win,” Leffler said. “In addition to those nine poles, I was leading in three other races and could have won but something always went wrong, things like getting tangled up with lapped traffic, getting caught in a wreck, things like that.”

At Daytona, Leffler’s veteran teammate, Ted Musgrave, wrecked when his Dodge blew a tire and Leffler got caught in the accident.

“It wasn’t a good day for Jim Smith, that’s for sure, getting both cars knocked out at the same time,” Leffler said. “It would be nice to get our first win at Mesa Marin, which is almost like a home track for us with so many family and friends in attendance.”

Leffler has raced on the half-mile banked oval only once, in a USAC Silver Crown race early in his career.

“We’re not allowed to test on a track where we race, so we tested at the old Nashville Fairgrounds track, which is kind of like Mesa Marin,” he said. “We really ran well, so we’re looking forward to getting on the track [for qualifying] Saturday.”

After shooting up the “most likely to succeed” ladder in 1997, ’98 and ‘99, when he won consecutive USAC midget car championships and the 1998 Silver Crown title, Leffler stumbled with an unwise decision in 2001.

He had just finished running the Busch series for Joe Gibbs as a protege of Tony Stewart. The future looked bright with Gibbs wanting him to remain a Busch driver for another year before stepping up to Winston Cup.

When Leffler got a call from Chip Ganassi to drive one of his Dodges in the 2001 Winston Cup season, though, he abruptly left Gibbs.

“It was a bad move,” he said. “I still feel bad about it. I thought it was the thing to do, but now I know I wasn’t ready for Winston Cup yet, but Andy Graves [Ganassi team manager] kept telling me what a good deal it would be. Things never did work out the way they said they would and when the season was over, I was out.”

Lacking experience for NASCAR’s premier circuit, Leffler finished 37th in points and had only one top-10 finish.

“Right now, my short-term goal is to win races for Jim Smith, and my long-term goal is to get back to Winston Cup. Having been there, I’ll know what to expect next time.”

Like Winston Cup standouts Jeff Gordon, Stewart and Ryan Newman, Leffler’s early background was in USAC midgets.

“When I was a kid growing up with Parnelli Jones’ kids, all I wanted to do was be a midget driver. Then after I won three championships and all the major races, like the 1999 Turkey Night Grand Prix at Irwindale, I decided the only place to be was in NASCAR.

“I still love midgets, though, and I’ll be in a couple of big races in April, the Vukovich Classic at Madera Speedway on April 19 and the Mopar twin 25s a week later at Irwindale. I’ll probably run 10 to 12 midget races on off weekends.”

Leffler isn’t the only local Craftsman Truck favorite running at Mesa Marin.

Brendan Gaughan of Las Vegas is a former winner at the Bakersfield track -- in a Winston West race.

Brandon Miller, a Bakersfield native, won the NASCAR Weekly Series super late model division on the same track last year. Miller will drive a Chevrolet owned by Winston Cup driver Kevin Harvick.

Matt Crafton of Tulare, remembers being at Mesa Marin when his dad, Danny, was racing.

“I remember coming as a little kid. I always loved going to the end of the grandstand and playing on those hills,” Crafton recalled. “There was nothing else to do. They wouldn’t let me go in the pits.”

The total prize money for the weekend, including a Featherlite Southwest Series race Saturday night, is $438,000, making it Kern County’s richest sporting event.

The 200-lap Southwest race will be the 53rd at Mesa Marin, more than at any other track.

Rain, Rain, Rain

For five weeks, wherever NASCAR went, the rain followed. From Florida to North Carolina to Nevada to Georgia to South Carolina, either the Winston Cup or Busch series lost at least one day of racing.

They’ll try again this week in Tennessee.

Circumstances have been even worse in Southern California. For two consecutive races, Sprint Car Racing Assn. main events at Perris Auto Speedway have been washed out -- once when it was a makeup date for an earlier rainout.

Ventura Raceway, spruced up for a national midget car championship race last Saturday night, instead got a torrential downpour.

There are no plans for a rain date because there is no open date compatible to both the track and USAC.

Phoenix Busy Too

The combined Indy Racing League and Copper World Classic will keep open-wheel racing enthusiasts busy this weekend at Phoenix International Raceway.

The IRL will present a 200-mile race and a 100-mile Infiniti Pro Series event on the mile oval, along with USAC main events for Silver Crown and midget car championships.

Twenty-two drivers, led by series leader Scott Dixon, are entered in the Purex Dial 200. Former IRL champion Greg Ray is scheduled to return

to the circuit April 13 in

Japan.

Last Laps

Racing at Irwindale Speedway won’t start until March 29, but racers and fans will have a free open house Saturday when NASCAR Weekly Series cars and drivers will practice from noon to 9 p.m.

Ventura Racing Assn. sprint cars will perform Saturday night, not at Ventura, but at Perris Auto Speedway as part of a triple-header with U.S. Auto Club Ford Focus midgets and IMCA modifieds.

The Disney Channel will premier “Right on Track,” a movie based on NHRA Jr. Dragster Racing League champion Erica Enders and her sister Courtney, tonight at 8 p.m. Jr. dragsters are for drivers 8-17 years old.

CART and the Grand Prix Assn. of Long Beach will hold a Champ Car Town Hall meeting Monday to talk about the April 13 Toyota Grand Prix. CART President Chris Pook, LBGP chief executive Jim Michaelian, driver Alex Tagliani, car owner Paul Gentilozzi and Speed Channel President Jim Liberatore will be on hand.

The meeting will start at 7 p.m. at the Grand at Willow Centre, 4101 E. Willow St. in Long Beach.

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This Week’s Races

WINSTON CUP

Food City 500

* When: Today, qualifying (Fox Sports Net, noon); Sunday, race (Channel 11, 9:30 a.m.).

* Where: Bristol Motor Speedway (oval, .533 miles, 36 degrees banking in turns); Bristol, Tenn.

* Race distance: 266.5 miles, 500 laps.

* 2002 winner: Kurt Busch.

* Next race: Samsung/Radio Shack 500, March 30; Fort Worth.

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BUSCH SERIES

Channellock 250

* When: Today, qualifying (Speed Channel, 10:30 a.m.); Saturday, race (FX, 10 a.m.).

* Where: Bristol Motor Speedway.

* Race distance: 133.25 miles, 250 laps.

* 2002 winner: Jeff Green.

* Next race: O’Reilly 300, March 29; Fort Worth.

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FORMULA ONE

Malaysian Grand Prix

* When: Today, qualifying (Speed Channel, 10 p.m.); Saturday, race (Speed Channel, 10:30 p.m.).

* Where: Sepang International Circuit (permanent road course, 3.443 miles, 15 turns), Kuala Lumpur.

* Race distance: 193.975 miles, 58 laps.

* 2002 winner: Ralf Schumacher.

* Next race: Brazilian Grand Prix, April 6, Sao Paulo.

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CRAFTSMAN TRUCKS

Lucas Oil 250

* When: Saturday, qualifying, 6 p.m.; Sunday, race (Speed Channel, 2 p.m.).

* Where: Mesa Marin Raceway (oval, .500 mile, 17 degrees banking in turns), Bakersfield.

* Race distance: 125 miles, 250 laps.

* 2002 winner: Inaugural race.

* Next race: Advance Auto Parts 250, April 12; Martinsville, Va.

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CART

Tecate Telmex Grand Prix

* When: Today, qualifying, 12:50 p.m.; Saturday, qualifying, (Speed Channel, 11:30 a.m.); Sunday, race (Speed Channel, 11:30 a.m.).

* Where: Fundidora Park (permanent road course, 2.1 miles, 12 turns); Monterrey, Mexico.

* Race distance: 178.8 miles, 85 laps.

* 2002 winner: Cristiano Da Matta.

* Next race: Toyota Grand Prix, April 13, Long Beach.

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INDY RACING LEAGUE

Purex Dial Indy 200

* When: Saturday, qualifying, 11 a.m.; Sunday, race (Channel 7, 12:30 p.m.).

* Where: Phoenix International Raceway (oval, 1 mile, 11 degrees banking in turns 1-2, 9 degrees in turns 3-4).

* Race distance: 200 miles, 200 laps.

* 2002 winner: Helio Castroneves.

* Next race: Indy Japan 300, April 13, Suzuka, Japan.