· Leffler is back in the No. 38 Great Clips Impala… This weekend at Talladega Superspeedway, Leffler will jump back into the driver’s seat of the No. 38 Great Clips Chevrolet. He is splitting his time between the No. 38 Great Clips Impala (25 races) and the No. 30 AccuDoc Solutions Impala (eight races) to compete for the 2011 NASCAR Nationwide Series (NNS) driver championship.
· Talladega Superspeedway: by the numbers… In seven starts at the 2.66-mile tri-oval, Leffler has captured two top-five and three top-10 finishes. He has an average start of 9.1 and an average finishing position of 19.6. With seven laps led, Leffler is listed 10th in NASCAR’s loop-data statistics for percentage of laps led. His best finish came in 2008 when he finished third after starting from the fourth position.
· This week’s Impala…. This weekend at Talladega Superspeedway, the No. 38 team will unload chassis TM-108. This is the same chassis Leffler piloted in the season-opener at Daytona International Speedway, where he brought home a sixth-place finish after starting 22nd.
· Second in line… Leffler currently sits second in the NASCAR Nationwide Series (NNS) driver point standings, 14 points behind Ricky Stenhouse, Jr. Teammates Justin Allgaier and Reed Sorenson are also top-five in the standings, sitting third and fifth, respectively.
· Remembering Beau – This weekend at Talladega, Turner Motorsports’ four NASCAR Nationwide Series entries will carry decals honoring the life of former ARCA Series competitor and Turner Motorsports employee Beau Slocumb who lost his heroic battle with cancer last weekend. Slocumb made four ARCA starts in 2009, logging an impressive 7.0 starting average combined with a solid 11.2 average finish. The 26-year-old driver logged a pair of top-10 finishes over those four starts including a career-best fifth-place finish at Kansas Speedway. Slocumb began his career racing Legends cars and climbed the professional ladder through the late model ranks, earning 131 feature wins in Legends and late model competition, and eventually making his mark in the ARCA series. He is survived by his wife Jessica, parents Burke “Buster” and Jeanne, brothers Seth and Daniel and sister Maggie. Memorials can be made to the Ryan Newman Foundation, Hospice of Iredell County (N.C.) or Hospice of Central Georgia.
· Start of a new era for Turner Motorsports… The 2011 season marks the start of a new era for Turner Motorsports. The team has expanded in 2011 from a two-truck operation in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series (NCWTS) to become the largest stand-alone multi-series team in NASCAR’s top-tier touring series, fielding three entries in the NCWTS and four entries in the NASCAR Nationwide Series (NNS). Three of the team’s regular NNS drivers (Jason Leffler, Reed Sorenson and Justin Allgaier) have been pegged as viable contenders to win the 2011 NNS driver championship.
· Happy 10-Year Anniversary, Great Clips… This season marks Great Clips’ 10-year anniversary as a primary sponsor in the NNS. The Minneapolis-based Great Clips, Inc., which is currently the longest-running primary sponsor in the series, came onto the scene in 2001 as a primary sponsor of Akins Motorsports No. 38 entry, then driven by Christian Elder.
· Leffler on SIRIUS’ Morning Drive every Wednesday… Don’t forget to tune in to SIRIUS Radio’s “Morning Drive” with Mike Bagley and Pete Pistone every Wednesday at 10:30am to hear Leffler’s take on recent events in the Nationwide Series and what you can expect from the week’s upcoming race.
Follow the No. 38 team on Twitter!Twitter.com/No38TurnerNNS
Follow Jason Leffler on Twitter! Twitter.com/JasonLeffler
Follow Turner Motorsports on Facebook! Facebook.com/TurnerMotorsports
Leffler on Racing at Talladega Superspeedway
“Restrictor-plate racing is pretty challenging but it’s a lot of fun. While it’s not something I’d like to do every week, it’s fun to mix it up and throw in a couple of these races each year. We learned a lot about the new cars at Daytona in February and that will help us at Talladega. I expect to again see the two-car drafts, which is an advantage for a team like Turner Motorsports, where we have three teammates we can draft with. Hopefully we can build on what we already know and get this Great Clips Chevy back into victory lane at the end of the day!”
