Phoenix Jason Leffler Copper World Classic Review

Jason Leffler of Long Beach, Calif. won Sunday’s "Copper World Classic" 50-mile USAC Coors Light Silver Bullet race at Phoenix (Ariz.) International Raceway. The victory was worth $19,370 and was the second of the day for co-car owner Tony Stewart. Leffler drove the Team ASE/Wynn’s Beast Special.

Stewart, last year’s NASCAR Winston Cup "Rookie of the Year" earlier won the 25-mile MCI WorldCom USAC Midget Car race in his Wynn’s/ASE/Performance Racing Industry/Beast.

"The car was awesome," said Leffler after the race. "We were lucky with traffic today. I got a break when Tracy Hines got held up by lapped cars and got away. Tony was spotting for me in the turn 1-2 suites and it was nice having his help."

Brian Tyler, the defending race winner and winner of last week’s series opener at Orlando, Fla., finished second in Sunday’s race and leads the series standings going into the April 7-8 race at Nazareth (Pa.) Speedway. Rounding out the top-five were Brad Noffsinger, Hines and Dave Darland.

Four yellow flags and one red flag slowed the race. There were no injuries and the red flag flew on lap 26 when Jack Hewitt and Pat Abold crashed exiting turn four.

Leffler established a new track qualifying record of 140.806 mph to win the pole starting position. He led the first four laps before yielding to Kenny Irwin for laps 5-11. He regained the lead on lap 12 and led the rest of the way as Irwin retired after 43 laps with power steering problems.

USAC COORS LIGHT SILVER BULLET SERIES STANDINGS

1.      Brian Tyler     117
2.      Brad Noffsinger 105
3.      Gary Hieber     99
4.      Ryan Newman     99
5.      Dave Darland    93
6.      Tracy Hines     90
7.      Jason Leffler   72
8.      Paul White      71
9.      Eric Gordon     58
10.     Chet Fillip     51

-USAC-