DU QUOIN, Ill. – The Jason Leffler Memorial has been a staple of the racing calendar for much of the past decade, but on Saturday night, Dec. 18, the eighth running of the event will see a new venue as the race goes indoors for the first time.
The eighth running of the Jason Leffler Memorial Presented by Fatheadz Eyewear returns to the USAC schedule under the roof of the Southern Illinois Center in Du Quoin for a USAC Midget non-points special event that will pay $8,000-to-win the 50-lap feature on the fifth-mile dirt oval.
Initially, the event was to be held outdoors at Wayne County Speedway in Wayne City, Ill. on Oct. 8, but was rained out. With the event going indoors, rain is out of the question, but the thrills of midget racing on a dirt bullring in southern Illinois remain unchanged.
The Leffler Memorial has featured seven different winners in its previous seven editions. Since the dawn of the event in 2013, a new winner has emerged on each  occasion.
The event honors the life and memory of Leffler, the four-time USAC National driving champion (1997-98-99 Midget & 1998 Silver Crown) who lost his life in a sprint car accident at New Jersey’s Bridgeport Speedway in June of 2013.
A format similar to the Chili Bowl will be utilized with drivers accumulating points based on their advancement and finishing position during the heats and qualifying races, which will seed the feature lineup.
Ten previous USAC-sanctioned midget events have been held at the Southern Illinois Center, including four in recent years during the month of December. Those wintertime classics were won by Ricky Stenhouse Jr. (2015), Tyler Courtney (2016), Christopher Bell (2017) and Thomas Meseraull (2018). Daniel Robinson captured a USAC Midwest Regional Midget victory at the Southern Illinois Center on Sept. 1 of this year.