CALIFORNIA NATIVE LEFFLER RIDES NASCAR BUSCH SERIES MOMENTUM

The hottest driver in the NASCAR Busch Series – Jason Leffler, who drives the No. 38 Great Clips Toyota for Braun Racing – is making a hometown pit stop this week. The Long Beach native is fresh off last Friday’s second-place finish at Bristol Motor Speedway and figures to be a favorite in Saturday’s Camping World 300 at California Speedway.

•  Leffler is fourth in the current NASCAR Busch Series standings. He started from the pole last week at Bristol and hopes to follow with his first win at his home track. He finished 38th in the February event.

•  Leffler already has one win this season -- the NASCAR Busch Series event at O’Reilly Raceway Park in Indianapolis several weeks ago – also Toyota’s first series victory.

•  The summer has been kind to Leffler and his team, which was 20th in the standings following the May event at Lowe’s Motor Speedway. Since then, they’ve rebounded to the top 10 in the series standings.

•  Leffler’s ’07 season has been memorable for other reasons: he and wife Allison welcomed their first child, son Charlie Dean, on Aug. 16.

CREDIT: NASCAR PR 

ALL ABOUT WINNING: DRIVERS BATTLE FOR CHASE SEEDING

Carl Edwards’ second victory of ’07 paid more of a dividend than trophies and celebrations. He becomes the fifth driver with multiple wins this season and gains crucial ground in the seeding stakes for the Chase for the NASCAR NEXTEL Cup. Fifth in the series standings, he’d also be seeded fifth if the Chase began now

•  Series leader Jeff Gordon and reigning series champion Jimmie Johnson are tied with a series-high four wins each on the season.

•  Johnson and Gordon – Hendrick Motorsports teammates – and Edwards, Kurt Busch and Tony Stewart are the only multiple winners this season. Fourteen different drivers have won thus far in ’07.

•  Jeff Burton (No. 31 RCR Chevrolet), Kevin Harvick (No. 29 Shell/Pennzoil Chevrolet), Matt Kenseth, Martin Truex Jr., Casey Mears (No. 25 National Guard/GMAC Chevrolet), Kyle Busch, Juan Pablo Montoya (No. 42 Havoline/Texaco Dodge) and Denny Hamlin are single-event winners this season.

•  Beginning in ‘07, drivers receive an extra 10 bonus points for each victory, placing an increased emphasis on winning. Seeding for the Chase for the NASCAR NEXTEL Cup will be done via the number of wins accumulated through the first 26 races rather than incremental point totals, as was the procedure during the Chase’s previous three seasons.

•  This year, the driver with the most wins will begin the Chase as the top seed. Drivers will be seeded second through 12th using their to-date win totals as the determining factor. Seeding ties are broken by the comparison of drivers’ best finishes beyond victories.

CREDIT: NASCAR PR