Jason Leffler: Three-Time Midget Champion, Indy 500 Starter and NASCAR Driver

Jason Leffler was an American driver who won three straight USAC midget championships, made one Indianapolis 500 start and then raced in the Busch and Cup series. His career ended on 12 June 2013, when he was fatally injured in a sprint car crash at Bridgeport Motorsports Park in New Jersey.

Who was Jason Leffler?

Jason Charles Leffler was born on September 16, 1975, and raced under the nickname LEFturn. He started in open-wheel cars before moving into NASCAR, where he drove for several major teams. Midget car racing was his foundation, and he carried that background onto bigger stages.

He was a native of Long Beach, California, and the son of Charles and Patricia Leffler. He was the father of Charlie Dean, whose mother was Alison East. The boy was five when his father died.

A midget car champion who carried his speed into NASCAR, and whose name now carries a memorial race.

How did Leffler dominate the midget ranks?

From 1997 through 1999 Leffler took three straight USAC midget championships, becoming the third driver to achieve that feat in midget car racing. He also took the Silver Crown series championship in 1998, adding a second national title in the same period.

Two of his 1997 victories came at the Hut Hundred and the Belleville Nationals, while the Turkey Night Grand Prix and the Copper Classic went to him in 1999. He won a second Turkey Night Grand Prix in 2005, and by 2003 he had 19 USAC national midget car wins, which earned him induction into the National Midget Auto Racing Hall of Fame that year.

Penske first crossed paths with Leffler at the 1998 Hut 100. Joe Gibbs Racing had also noticed his results, and the team had previously brought Tony Stewart in from USAC. Leffler joined Gibbs in 1999.

Did Leffler race at Indianapolis?

Yes, once. Leffler made a single start in the Indianapolis 500 in 2000, driving for Treadway Racing with backing from Roger Penske's United Auto group. He qualified and finished seventeenth. A year earlier he had also made an Indy Racing League start at Walt Disney World Speedway, where an early crash left him last.

His earlier Indy Racing League appearance came in 1999 at Walt Disney World Speedway, driving the No. 5 Treadway Racing car. He crashed early in that race and finished last.

How did Leffler's Busch Series career unfold?

In 2000 Leffler drove full-time in the No. 18 MBNA Joe Gibbs Racing Busch car. He finished 20th in the points standings, earned three poles and finished second at Phoenix. He also made two IRL starts that year, one of them the Indianapolis 500.

In 2002 he joined Ultra Motorsports in the No. 2 Carquest Dodge Ram, replacing the departed Scott Riggs. He tied a single-season Craftsman Truck Series record with eight poles that year and had six second-place finishes. Ultra also gave him the No. 7 car for the final two Cup races of the season after the team fired Casey Atwood.

His first Busch Series win came at Nashville Superspeedway in 2004. That season he was also at the centre of a controversial finish at the Winn-Dixie 250, where NASCAR penalised him for over-aggressive driving on the final lap. The move spun Michael Waltrip and wrecked Dale Earnhardt Jr. Leffler was third in the points when the team released him, and he still finished 12th in the standings despite missing the last seven races.

After leaving Gibbs, Leffler drove for Braun Racing, first briefly and then full-time for the rest of 2005, scoring four top-ten finishes in nine starts. In 2006 he returned to Braun's No. 32 Chevrolet, with sponsors including Lucas Oil, the Fraternal Order of Eagles and ABF U-Pack Moving. The car became the No. 38 after a merger with Akins Motorsports, and he owned the 2006 USAC Silver Crown championship team.

In 2007 Leffler won the pole for the Winn-Dixie 250 at Daytona, finishing ninth. Later that season, on 28 July, he passed Greg Biffle with two laps remaining to win the Kroger 200 at O'Reilly Raceway Park. Toyota took its first Busch Series win with the Camry, and no import brand had won a top-tier NASCAR race since Al Keller drove a Jaguar to victory in 1954.

Leffler finished third in the Busch regulars' points that year, and the 2007 win was his first since the 2004 season. In 2009 the team said, during the July Daytona weekend, that the No. 38 would be shared with Kasey Kahne in 2010. Leffler still drove full-time, piloting the No. 10 Toyota in races when Kahne was in the No. 38.

The Braun team's Nationwide operation changed hands on 25 September 2010, when Turner Motorsports took it over. Under Turner, Leffler kept his full-time seat in the No. 38 Great Clips car through 2011, with some races in the No. 10 and No. 30. Late in 2011 he learned he could look elsewhere for 2012.

What was Leffler's Winston Cup and Cup career?

Leffler moved to the Winston Cup Series in 2000, when he replaced the late Kenny Irwin Jr. in the No. 01 Cingular Wireless Dodge for Chip Ganassi Racing. Irwin had been killed in a practice crash at New Hampshire that year, and the ride came with a change of manufacturer to the Dodge Intrepid.

His first Cup season was a difficult one. He had one top-ten finish and four failures to qualify, though he was the inaugural pole setter at Kansas Speedway. He finished 37th in the 2001 championship, and Ganassi replaced him with Jimmy Spencer for 2002.

In 2003 he won his first career race at Dover while driving for Ultra Motorsports. Later that year Haas CNC Racing, which was fielding its first full-time Cup team, asked him to drive the No. 0 NetZero Pontiac at the Brickyard 400 after John Andretti was unavailable. Ultra had warned him that the move broke his contract, and it fired him. Leffler then made ten starts in the No. 0 and became its permanent driver after the Sirius Satellite Radio race at Watkins Glen.

Later Leffler rejoined Joe Gibbs Racing for 2005, and was given the wheel of a fresh Cup entry backed by FedEx. The No. 11 Chevrolet was often outside the top 35 in points, and Leffler could not qualify for the Coca-Cola 600. He failed to record a top-ten finish in 19 starts before the team let him go. Denny Hamlin later took over the car full time.

He returned to the Cup Series for a few races in 2008 in the No. 70 Haas CNC Chevrolet. He later drove for Robinson-Blakeney Racing at Watkins Glen and for Humphrey Smith Racing at Michigan International Speedway in 2012. His only Cup start in 2013 came at Pocono Raceway in early June, in Humphrey Smith's No. 19 Toyota Camry. He started and parked, finishing 43rd, three days before he died.

What happened at Phoenix in 2011?

In the second-to-last race of the 2011 Nationwide Series season at Phoenix International Raceway, Leffler bumped the rear bumper of Elliott Sadler in turn three. The contact spun Sadler, who had been seventeen points behind the leader, and it collected Aric Almirola, Jeremy Clements and Morgan Shepherd as well. Sadler lost the championship by 45 points to Ricky Stenhouse Jr.

Leffler took full responsibility for the incident in his interview afterwards, saying it was his own fault.

What happened with his 2012 truck ride?

In January 2012 Kyle Busch Motorsports announced that Leffler would drive its No. 18 truck for fourteen races, with Dollar General as the sponsor. Bad luck and poor finishes followed, and the team released him on 14 August 2012. His remaining starts that year came in Cup races at Watkins Glen and Michigan.

After the release, his remaining starts came in Cup races, including the single start at Pocono in 2013 that was his last.

How did Leffler die?

Leffler died on 12 June 2013 from injuries sustained in a crash during a 410 sprint car heat race at Bridgeport Motorsports Park in Logan Township, New Jersey. He was running second with a handful of laps remaining when the front suspension gave way, and the car hit the wall and rolled over several times.

He lost consciousness instantly. When officials found he was not breathing, the rest of the race was cancelled and no victory lane ceremony took place. Doctors at Crozer-Chester Medical Center in Chester, Pennsylvania, confirmed his death at 9:00 PM, about thirty minutes after the crash, having been moved there by ambulance. An autopsy listed the cause of death as a severe blunt force neck and spine injury.

How was Leffler remembered?

Many drivers and racing bodies, including NASCAR and IndyCar, issued statements of condolence after his death. NASCAR drivers wore special stickers in his honour at the 2013 Quicken Loans 400, and Denny Hamlin repainted his car in a design modelled on Leffler's livery. The gesture was among the earliest memorial throwbacks drivers had run that year.

The Jason Leffler Memorial was held on the USAC midget championship in Illinois from 2014 to 2023. In 2025 it moved to Kern Raceway in California, where Charlie Leffler handed over the winner's trophy at the event that marked its first run in his father's home state. Leffler was inducted into the USAC Hall of Fame in 2018.

Career summary by series