Jason Leffler funeral services, charity fund announced

   Charlie Dean Leffler Charity Fund Established
   Funeral Services for Jason Leffler Announced

   CORNELIUS, N.C. (June 15, 2013) - In honor of NASCAR driver Jason Leffler, who lost his life in a racing accident this week, a trust fund has been established for his five-year-old son, Charlie Dean. This trust will serve as the official Leffler Family fund, with all monies going directly to Charlie's needs. Turner Scott Motorsports co-owner Harry Scott Jr., former Braun Racing owner Todd Braun and Steve Overholser, CFO of Great Clips, will serve as trustees.

   Donations can be made to The Charlie Dean Leffler Discretionary Trust at:  
   The Charlie Dean Leffler Discretionary Trust
   c/o SunTrust Bank
   232 Williamson Road
   Mooresville, NC 28117

   A celebration of Jason Leffler's life will be held on Wednesday, June 19. The service will be at Grace Covenant Church, located at 17301 Statesville Road in Cornelius, N.C. at 1:00 p.m. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to The Charlie Dean Leffler Discretionary Trust.

Tony Stewart talks about his relationship with Jason Leffler

   Three-time Sprint Cup champion Tony Stewart has known and raced with Jason Leffler for years, from dirt tracks to NASCAR. Stewart on Friday talked about his relationship with Leffler, who died in a racing accident on Wednesday night.

   "Yeah, I have known Jason for a long time obviously. We grew up racing together and followed the same paths racing-wise. So I mean he was a friend, he was a roommate, he was a teammate and I got to be around him a lot. He loved nothing more than being behind the wheel of a race car," Stewart said.

   "I was just shocked to hear what had happened and obviously it’s just a reminder of how dangerous our sport is, but we have had a lot of safety innovations over the last 15 years since I have been in Cup. It’s just proof that we will never get to the stage where everybody is immune to getting hurt in a race car. That is just the scenario that we are in and there isn’t anybody that gets behind the wheel that doesn’t understand that going into it, and Jason was that way as well. He just loved doing what he was doing and it was just a rough week there and obviously Charlie (Leffler's son) is the one that we are all thinking about the most right now."

   Asked what stood out most about Leffler, Stewart said:
  
   “We got to hang out a lot away from the race track as well as at the track. When he moved from California to Indiana to start racing USAC fulltime, he moved in with me and lived with us for a little under a year and I got to see a lot of things and he was just a lot of fun," he said. 

   "He was a racer and didn’t care what he raced, where he raced, when he raced, it was all he wanted to do was to drive a race car. It was fun to have a roommate like that who had the same passion and desire that I had."
 

Rick Hendrick responds to Brad Keselowski's accusations of employee poaching

   Reigning Sprint Cup champion Brad Keselowski told a group of reporters Thursday night in Dearborn, Mich., that the reason Penske Racing and Roush Fenway racing have been slow to share information on their Ford cars is due to the fact Hendrick Motorsports and Joe Gibbs Racing have made a habit of hiring employees away from their organization to "steal information."

 

   The charge didn't sit well with Hendrick Motorsports owner Rick Hendrick.

 

   "Roger Penske and I are great friends and have raced together for years. We’ve always competed with the utmost respect, and I have immense admiration for his organization. You won’t find anyone at Hendrick Motorsports who feels differently," he said.

  

   "The comments Brad reportedly made were misinformed. The truth is that we hired one tire changer, who was a backup for Penske and whose contract was up. We also brought over one mechanic from their Nationwide program and, when the Penske engine shop was closing, added a few of those people. What Brad left out was that his organization also hired one of our tire changers.

 

   “All of this was aboveboard and is part of doing business in a competitive environment. I take no issue with any of it, and I expect Roger would say the same.

 

   "Brad misrepresents the facts and spends a lot of time making insinuations and accusations about other teams when he should be focused on his own program and competing at a high level. I hope he figures that out and begins representing himself and the sport with more class.”

Leffler died of blunt neck force injury

Race car driver Jason Leffler's death was came from a blunt neck force injury, a spokesperson for the Delaware (Pa.) County Medical Examiner's office said Thursday night.

Leffler was killed Wednesday when his 410 sprint car crashed coming out of Turn 4 at a dirt track race heat at the Bridgeport Speedway in New Jersey. -- David Scott

NASCAR driver Jason Leffler killed in sprint car race

    NASCAR veteran Jason Leffler, who made his first start in the Sprint Cup Series last weekend at Pocono Raceway, was killed after a crash in a winged sprint car race in New Jersey on Wednesday night, New Jersey State Police officials confirmed.  

   Leffler was racing at Bridgeport Speedway in Swedesboro, N.J., a 5/8-mile, high-banked dirt oval.

   The NJSP have launched an investigation into the accident, which is required by state law. The only information available on the accident itself was that it involved “a malfunction of the car,” police said.

   Leffler was extracted from his winged sprint car and airlifted to Crozer Chester Hospital in Chester, Pa., where he was pronounced dead at 9:02 p.m. ET.

   Leffler, 37, ran eight laps in last Sunday’s Sprint Cup Series race at Pocono Raceway in Long Pond, Pa. It was his first start of the season in any of NASCAR three national series.

   “NASCAR extends its thoughts, prayers and deepest sympathies to the family of Jason Leffler who passed away earlier this evening,” said a statement from NASCAR released Wednesday night.

   “For more than a decade, Jason was a fierce competitor in our sport and he will be missed.”

   From 1990 to 2010 at least 382 drivers have died while racing, according to an Observer analysis of track deaths. Those include 196 deaths on small ovals and 95 deaths on drag strips.

   At least seven drivers have died on New Jersey tracks since 1999, including two on small ovals, data show.

   According to the Observer’s records, the most recent small oval death in New Jersey took place in 2002 at Wall Township Speedway in Wall Township, N.J.

   Leffler spent most of his decade-plus career in the Nationwide Series, running full schedules from 2006 to 2011. He had two wins, 42 top-five and 107 top-10 finishes.

   His biggest break in NASCAR came in 2005, when Joe Gibbs Racing hired him to drive fulltime in the Cup series with a newly-created team. Leffler, however, struggled from the start and was released after 19 starts.

   Leffler began his career racing midget cars and was just the third driver to win three consecutive midget car championships.

   Leffler made his first, and only, start in the Indianapolis 500 in 2000 with Treadway Racing with backing from Roger Penske’s United Auto group. Leffler qualified  and finished 17th.

  

NASCAR battles expectations of what's possible with what's expected

   Less than 24 hours after the third-largest blowout in NBA Finals history and there is nary a peep from any fan demanding changes to the way professional basketball is played.

   There shouldn’t be, of course.

   But I promise you this, if Sunday’s Sprint Cup Series race had ended with Jimmie Johnson winning by the third largest margin in series history, a large contingent of the motorsports media, as well as the fans, would be clamoring for rules changes.

   Why is that? Everyone is at least a little bit to blame.

   The biggest problem appears to be that what is possible each week in a NASCAR event – a down-to-the-wire finish complete with lots of side-by-side racing in the process – has become expected rather than appreciated when it just happens to occur.

   Fewer people will not tune in to watch the next game in the NBA Finals because they fear another blowout. In fact, some may tune in just in hopes of seeing one (San Antonio fans for instance).

   A down-to-the-wire, last-second game-winning shot outcome is possible in each NBA Finals game but fans don’t come to expect it.

   NASCAR fans – at least the vocal ones – have come to expect such nonstop action and believe something needs to be “fixed” when it doesn’t happen on a regular basis. There is a contingent of media who follow the same path.

   It is, of course, an unreasonable expectation and most fans probably understand that not every race can be a barn-burner.

   Whether fans today want to hear it or not, NASCAR racing is far more competitive than 10 years ago and enormously more competitive than back “in the good old days” (whenever they were).

   NASCAR, the tracks and even the TV networks – and probably the media, too – share in the blame of some fans’ unreasonable expectations.

   If all of your advertising – whether it’s from NASCAR, networks or tracks – focus on big wrecks, photo finishes and pit road fights, you can’t be surprised when fans leave disappointed when they see none of the above.

   The fight in the 1979 Daytona 500 may be a defining moment in the sport’s history but it cannot define the sport and how it’s portrayed in perpetuity.

   If it does, everyone will leave disappointed.

 

   A little more appreciation of good racing, rather than just "good drama" by all involved would help balance expectations.

Man killed in in Caldwell County shootout once was NASCAR driver

 

   John Settlemyre, 67, who died in the shootout with Caldwell County (N.C.) sheriff's deputies, was a former race car driver with some notable achievements to his name.

    Settlemyre was a five-time winner of Late Model Sportsman races at Hickory Motor Speedway, from 1977-81. In 1982, that race series became NASCAR's Nationwide Series, and Settlemyre won the Winston 200 at Hickory; he ran just six Nationwide races that year (five at Hickory) but had four top-10 finishes.
   Read the rest of the story from the Lenoir (N.C.) News-Topic here.