WAYNE City, Ill. — Eight years. Eight races. Eight different winners.
The beat goes on with this Friday night’s ninth running of the Peoples National Bank Jason Leffler Memorial for the USAC NOS Energy Drink Midget National Championship on Oct. 7 at Wayne County Speedway.
Throughout the past decade, the event has sustained its unpredictability with a new feature winner emerging each and every year since the inaugural edition back in 2013. Just one past winner of the event is expected to compete in this year’s installment of the Leffler Memorial, and he’d sure like to put an end to the string of different winners.
Zach Daum captured victory in the first Leffler Memorial in 2013 and went on to also garner a fifth in 2014 and a third in 2015. In 2021, he added an eighth to his resume when the event was moved indoors to the Southern Illinois Center for the first time.
This year on the USAC tour, he’s finished on the podium in three of his last four feature starts as he looks for his first USAC victory since 2014.
Cannon McIntosh is the only driver to finish inside the top-four during each of the past two runnings of the Leffler Memorial. He finished second a year ago in 2021 after leading the initial 13 laps. In 2020, he started on the pole and was in contention for the lead throughout much of the feature before a turn three fence bang dropped him back to fourth in the final running order.
Current point leader, reigning series champ and multi-time USAC National Midget feature winner Buddy Kofoid was 17th in 2020 during his only previous Leffler Memorial start. He’s one of seven entries out of the Keith Kunz/Curb-Agajanian Motorsports stable for the event as Kunz vies for a USAC National Midget record 134th victory.
Kunz currently stands tied with Steve Lewis for number one all-time with 133.
However, a Kunz car has yet to win the Leffler Memorial thus far.
The KKM stable also brings Leffler Memorial returnees Daison Pursley and Kaylee Bryson back to the event for the first time since 2020. As rookies that year, Pursley scored a fifth while Bryson took 18th. Meanwhile, Brenham Crouch, Bryant Wiedeman, Taylor Reimer and Dominic Gorden are among those attempting to make their first Leffler Memorial feature start on Friday.
CB Industries comes into the event as the reigning winning team after Christopher Bell captured the Leffler Memorial in 2021. The CBI team will sport two entries for the event with Mitchel Moles and Chase McDermand at the wheel.
Moles, the leading series rookie, is fresh off a victory at Ohio’s Eldora Speedway two weeks ago. He finished a solid fifth at the Leffler Memorial in 2021. McDermand will be making his “Leffler” debut.
Justin Grant has recorded top-five results in two of his past three starts at the Leffler Memorial. Grant notched a best of fourth in both 2014 and 2018, then followed up with a fifth in 2019 and a 10th in 2020. Grant was also a feature starter in the inaugural Leffler Memorial in 2013.
His RMS Racing teammate, Thomas Meseraull, will make his return to the Leffler Memorial after making his only previous start in the event in 2019 — finishing 16th.
After sweeping last weekend’s pair of USAC AMSOIL Sprint Car National Championship features at Kokomo and Lawrenceburg, Kyle Cummins is eying a second career Leffler Memorial start after finishing seventh in the 2020 main while also setting a new 10-lap track record of 1:51.378 during a 10-lap heat race.
Series rookie Jacob Denney will make his Leffler Memorial debut this Friday. He previously won this season with the USAC National Midgets at Lincoln Park Speedway during Indiana Midget Week. The two-time USAC Midwest Thunder SpeeD2 Midget titlist will be one of two Mounce-Stout Motorsports entries for the race along with micro sprint standout Talin Turner.
Chance Crum will make his comeback to action this weekend after a wild crash at Eldora on September 24. Crum finished on the podium in his Leffler Memorial debut in 2021, finishing third. Hayden Reinbold also returns for his second Leffler Memorial appearance following a 20th place result in 2020.
Furthermore, series veterans Ethan Mitchell and BCRA Midget champion Maria Cofer plan to make their first Leffler Memorial starts this Friday night.
The $5,000-to-win event honors the life and memory of Leffler, the four-time USAC National driving champion — 1997-98-99 Midget and 1998 Silver Crown — who lost his life in a sprint car accident at New Jersey’s Bridgeport Speedway in June of 2013.