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No. 16 driver secures 1,000th NASCAR win for Ford

RELATED: Quicken Loans 400 results | Updated Sprint Cup standings | Edwards on Biffle: ‘He ain’t our teammate’

BROOKLYN, Mich. — Greg Biffle feels right at home at Michigan International Speedway.
 
He took the lead for good on a late restart and ran away from the field in the closing laps to win Sunday’s Quicken Loans 400. The No. 16 Ford driver won his second straight race here and the 19th of his career. Four of those victories have come at MIS.
 
"It’s definitely a special day," Biffle said after delivering Ford Motor Company its 1,000th victory in NASCAR’s three national series. "Just super-excited for Ford and sure excited to be No. 1,000."
 
The win secured Biffle a berth in the 2014 NASCAR Sprint All-Star Race and moved him up a spot to eighth in the standings.

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Second a week ago at Pocono, Biffle led the pack to the restart on lap 173 and outran Martin Truex Jr. to stay out front. He led a race-best 48 laps.
 
Owner Jack Roush’s operations center is in suburban Detroit and he considers MIS his home track. He was beaming almost as broadly as his driver.
 
"We expect to be at our best when we come to MIS and I am glad we could pull it off," Roush said. "I was a little nervous for a minute there, but I am glad it worked out and glad we could give Ford its 1,000th win."
 
Sprint Cup Series points leader Jimmie Johnson was gaining on Biffle in the final laps but a cut right-front tire took him off the track with two laps to go.
 
Kevin Harvick finished second and Truex, Kyle Busch and Tony Stewart rounded out the top five.
 
Johnson took second a few laps before his misfortune and Harvick backed out of the throttle to hold on to at least a third-place finish.
 
"It was the third set of tires we had and they felt a little wobbly," he said. "We just wanted to hold our track position."
 
Biffle still was impressed with Johnson, whom he finished second to a week ago at Pocono.
 
"The guy was 10 (on the restart) and was catching me with 10 to go," Biffle said. "That’s a fast race car.
 
"We beat the 48 today and that says a lot. He was really, really fast."
 
Johnson ended the day 28th to wrap up a tough day for Hendrick Motorsports. None of the racing giant’s four entries cracked the top 25.
 
Pole winner Carl Edwards, who trailed Johnson by 51 points at the start of the race, cut 20 points off the deficit by finishing eighth.
 
Dale Earnhardt Jr. took the lead near the halfway point and appeared strong, but a blown engine ended his race on lap 131.
 
"It made a lot of damage there when it broke," he said after leading 34 laps at the track where he ended his 143-race dry spell a year ago. "I’m not sure they’re going to be able to figure out what happened."
 
Jamie McMurray led 21 laps but fell out of contention when he blew a right-front tire on lap 167.
 
The day’s worst-looking wreck came shortly after the midway point when Kasey Kahne struck the wall near turn 2. The car caught fire as Kahne was getting out, but he stuck his arm back inside to trigger the fire-suppression system. He was not hurt.
 
Kurt Busch started on the outside of the front row and led the first 21 laps but spun and smacked the turn 2 wall two laps later.
 
Stewart ran his streak of top-seven finishes to four straight races and jumped from 13th to 10th in the standings.
 
There were showers after Saturday’s Nationwide Series race and NASCAR gave crews a competition caution 20 laps in to assess tire wear on the clean surface.
 
The Sprint Cup Series continues next Sunday when drivers run the first road course of the season in the Toyota/Save Mart 350 at Sonoma Raceway in California.

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Troublesome No. 11 Toyota ends up with 30th-place finish at Michigan

RELATED: Quicken Loans 400 results | Updated Sprint Cup standings

BROOKLYN, Mich. — Denny Hamlin did a great thing this weekend.

Many drivers paid tribute to the late Jason Leffler by donning decals in honor of “LefTurn” in Sunday’s Sprint Cup Series Quicken Loans 400, but none recalled Leffler’s legacy with as much effort as Hamlin’s No. 11 FedEx crew.

Leffler, a former Joe Gibbs Racing driver, previously donned the FedEx logo, so Hamlin’s team transformed his black-trimmed Toyota Camry to a replica of Leffler’s 2005 paint scheme ahead of the race at Michigan.
 
“It was an idea that I had to pay tribute to Jason in today’s race,” said Hamlin. “We had become friends over the past several years and had the same circle of friends, so it meant a lot to me to honor his memory.
 
“He was the reason FedEx came into the sport, so it kind of all made sense.”

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While Hamlin’s heart was in the right place, his car wasn’t. The No. 11 struggled all day to find any sort of footing on the track, spending the majority of the day a lap down.
 
The team worked feverishly on pit road to bring Hamlin’s car at least a hint of competitiveness, but was unable to figure anything out by race-end.
 
"We changed everything,” said crew chief Darian Grubb. “We changed shocks, bump stops, everything and we never affected it really. So we’ll take it back to the shop, tear it all apart and see if we can find something.
 
The result was a 30th-place disappointment at a track where Hamlin has succeeded in the past, with two wins and five top-five finishes under his belt.
 
After a 34th-place finish at Dover two weeks ago, Hamlin needed to build off a top-10 at Pocono to get the ball rolling as he attempts to make his way into the top 20 in the point standings to be eligible for a Chase for the Sprint Cup wild card spot.
 
It just didn’t happen.
 
"I have no idea (what was wrong with the car),” said Grubb. “Just really, really loose in traffic. We couldn’t run within a second of what we ran in practice. I really don’t have a clue."
 
Hamlin’s return to the track after missing four races because of a back injury sustained in a wreck with Joey Logano at Auto Club Speedway has been all hit or miss. After getting back into the car for a brief run at Talladega before giving way to Brian Vickers, who drove to a 34th-place finish for which Hamlin received points, two consecutive top-fives at Darlington and Charlotte had many back on the Hamlin bandwagon as a win appeared imminent.
 
With an average finish of 24th over the past three races, a current standing of 26th in points and just 11 races left before the Chase begins, Hamlin’s chances continue to shrink.

What he needs right now is a win, and while he does have multiple wins at four of the remaining 11 tracks, he’d likely need to stand in Victory Lane two or three times to pull himself out of the deficit he finds himself in.
 
Considering just four drivers (Jimmie Johnson, Kevin Harvick, Matt Kenseth and Kyle Busch) have multiple wins through 15 races, the likelihood of a struggling driver reeling off a few wins in a row to finish out the season is low.
 
If there is a silver lining for Hamlin to be found, it’s that at this point last year, Jeff Gordon stood in 20th place with no wins, and ended up making the Chase after earning his lone victory at the second Pocono race.
 
That being said, nearly 100 points stand between Hamlin (299 points) and Kurt Busch (384 points) in 20th place.
 
It’ll be a tough spot for him to race his way out of, but don’t except the hard-nosed Hamlin to give up his heard-earned reputation for resilience just yet.

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Reaches milestone on 110th anniversary of Ford Motor Company’s incorporation

Ford earned its 1,000th NASCAR national series win on Sunday at Michigan International Speedway in Brooklyn, Mich. 

Greg Biffle did the honors as the Blue Oval celebrated about an hour drive west of its Dearborn headquarters with his fourth career NASCAR Sprint Cup Series win at the track. The win moved him from the Chase bubble in 10th to eighth.

“Ford has been an important part of our sport since their first win,” said NASCAR President Mike Helton. “We congratulate the entire Ford Motor Company and the race teams, past and present, that have contributed in this very significant milestone of their 1,000th win.”

1,000 NASCAR WINS

— 615 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series wins by Ford
— 96 Sprint Cup wins by Mercury
— 4 Sprint Cup wins by Lincoln
— 200 NASCAR Nationwide Series wins by Ford
— 85 NASCAR Camping World Truck Series wins by Ford

TOP FIVE DRIVERS BY WINS

— 89: Mark Martin (35 NSCS/47 NNS/7 NCWTS)
— 73: David Pearson (73 NSCS)
— 64: Carl Edwards (20 NSCS/38 NNS/6 NCWTS)
— 53: Greg Biffle (19 NSCS/18 NNS/16 NCWTS)
— 43: Ned Jarrett (43 NSCS)

On Friday, Biffle was asked about getting the 1,000th win for the manufacturer and talked put it in the perspective of his season as he attempts to earn Ford’s first Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup since the inaugural Chase in 2004.

“There are a lot of things on the line for us as far as that win,” Biffle said. “One, it would be our first of the season; two, it would propel us towards the Chase; and three, the 1,000th win for Ford Racing in NASCAR.”

The weekend started for Ford drivers on Thursday in Dearborn, where Carl Edwards said he became one of “only eight or nine people” to drive “Sweepstakes,” a car designed by Henry Ford, who drove it to his company first victory on Oct. 10, 1901 at the Detroit Driving Club in Grosse Pointe, Mich. It was the first and only race Ford ran and set him on the road to establishing Ford Motor Company 110 years ago to the day on Sunday.

After winning the Coors Light Pole Award with an average lap of 202.452 mph, Edwards talked about driving Ford Racing’s first winning car.

“We got it up to maybe 20 or 25 miles per hour driving on the road there, and they said it would go 73 miles per hour in 1901,” said Edwards, who finished eighth on Sunday. “It was scarier driving that thing 25 miles per hour than it was driving the corner here at 205. Those guys were brave.

“The neatest thing about that which I didn’t know until I talked with Edsel Ford and the guys there is that if it weren’t for winning that race, Ford Motor Company as we know it might not exist,” Edwards said. “For him to risk everything and build this race car and go out and race it and win and be able to put together investors for Ford Motor Company was huge.”

The No. 16 team’s win extended owner Jack Roush’s NASCAR Sprint Cup Series record of 13 victories at his home track and was a record 45th NASCAR Sprint Cup Series victory for Ford and Mercury at MIS.

“Here we are in the summer of 2013 celebrating Henry Ford’s 150th birthday and in the same year we’re celebrating our 1,000th win in NASCAR,” said Jamie Allison, director, Ford Racing.  “We all know how Ford Motor Company started, and I think reaching this milestone really honors the spirit of what Henry Ford started.”

Understanding the importance of the track’s proximity to the auto manufacturing hub of Detroit, MIS President Roger Curtis announced Friday that a manufacturer’s trophy will be awarded after each NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race, beginning with the Pure Michigan 400 on August 18, for the car company that goes to Victory Lane.

Allison acknowledged that winning at MIS held special meaning for Ford.

“We want to show up and compete and win in front of our friends, our neighbors, our employees, the entire network of people who support our company, whether it’s executives, fans, you name it,” Allison said. “It’s an extra level of pride that comes with being here in your hometown.”

Ford’s winning ways began at the beginning of NASCAR as Jim Roper in a Lincoln won the first Strictly Stock, now Sprint Cup Series, race in the sport’s history on June 19, 1949 at the old Charlotte Speedway.

Sixty-four years later, Ford supports 11 full-time drivers in NASCAR Sprint Cup Series competition, five in the Nationwide Series and two in the Camping World Truck Series. Ford competes in all three national series with support of Front Row Motorsports, Germain Racing, Penske Racing, Richard Petty Motorsports, Roush Fenway Racing and the Wood Brothers. This season, Ford added full-time support of Brad Keselowski Racing in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series. 

Trevor Bayne, who claimed the manufacturer’s 200th NASCAR Nationwide Series victory last Sunday at Iowa and its 600th NASCAR Sprint Cup Series win in the 2011 Daytona 500, finished 15th in the No. 21 car for Wood Brothers.

Bayne noted on Friday that the Blue Oval supported his No. 6 Nationwide car under the hood as well as being a sponsor.

“Ford is such a huge backbone of our team,” Bayne said. “Not only do they give us manufacturer support, but they were actually on our race car last weekend at Iowa with the Ford EcoBoost Mustang, so we could not do it without them.” 

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Hendrick Motorsports drivers take brunt of topsy-turvy day

RELATED: Quicken Loans 400 results | Updated Sprint Cup standings

Several drivers needing shots in the arm in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series standings instead took hard shots Sunday at Michigan International Speedway, with early pitfalls dramatically impacting their rank with 11 races left in the regular season before the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup.

Hendrick Motorsports, typically up front performance-wise, was first in line for servings of adversity with all four of its entries hitting snags.

Jeff Gordon, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Kasey Kahne, Denny Hamlin and Kurt Busch — all former Michigan winners — hoped to capitalize on their experience at the 2-mile track in the Quicken Loans 400. But the quintet was unable to solidify their positioning in the Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup postseason hunt, and points leader Jimmie Johnson saw his lead shrink significantly after a late-race tire issue.

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Gordon was the first to encounter trouble, colliding with Bobby Labonte in just the fourth of 200 laps and smacking the outside wall. His 39th-place finish dropped him a whopping five spots from 11th to 16th in the points as the four-time series champion lost his hold on one of the two Wild Card playoffs spots.

Gordon, a five-time Coors Light Pole winner at Michigan, attributed a portion of his misfortune to starting back in the pack in 29th place.

“For years I’ve always said I don’t believe in good luck or bad luck that you make it,” said Gordon, who managed to return to the race after 130 laps in the garage but retired early for his fourth DNF of the season. “Just in that instance right there I call that being at the wrong place at the wrong time, but I also know that we contribute to where we started. We started back there and we were moving forward which I’m proud of, but the fact that we are back there.

“I put as much blame on myself. I really struggled this weekend when we went into qualifying trim. I’ve struggled all year. Shoot, the last two years with qualifying and I don’t know what it is, but we have to get it better. Starting back there you are only putting yourself into those positions to have those kinds of things happen.”

Two different problems affected Kahne and Earnhardt, Gordon’s Hendrick Motorsports teammates, shortly after the race’s midway point.

Kahne brought out the race’s sixth caution period after a cut tire sent his No. 5 Chevrolet hard into the turn 2 wall in Lap 102. Kahne was uninjured, but his demolished car relegated him to a 38th-place finish.

The outcome continued a recent slide for Kahne, who was as high as second in the standings after a runner-up finish at Kansas on April 21. Since then, he’s gradually slid out of the top 10, with Sunday’s crash moving him from eighth to 12th in the points in one swoop. His one victory this year — at Bristol in March — does help him cling to one of the Chase wild-card spots.

Earnhardt was the next Hendrick driver to watch his day end early. His No. 88 car slowed dramatically for a lap before trailing a plume of smoke to bring out a 130th-lap yellow flag. Earnhardt finished third the previous week at Pocono Raceway to jump two positions into fourth in the Sprint Cup points; his failure to finish Sunday knocked him back three slots to seventh place.

“Just telling them guys to hold their head up they did a great job overnight getting the car competitive,” Earnhardt said of his crew. “We had a first- or second-place car right there.”

The lone bright spot for the Hendrick operation was primed to be Johnson for the second straight week, but his No. 48 Chevy slowed with a blown tire just three laps from the finish. He limped to the pits and finished 28th, the first driver one lap down.

The downfall allowed second-place Carl Edwards, who ran eighth Sunday, to chop 20 points off Johnson’s lead, closing to 31 points off the top. Clint Bowyer also moved 20 points closer in third place, finishing seventh Sunday to stand 49 points off the lead.

Kurt Busch, who started second and swept Saturday’s practice sessions, brought out the yellow flag in the 28th lap with a spin and mild contact with the outside retaining wall. The No. 78 driver had inched up nine places in last eight races, but Sunday’s 35th-place finish — seven laps down — pushed him from 15th to 20th in points, increasing his urgency to secure a win for his Wild Card hopes.

Hamlin paid tribute to former Joe Gibbs Racing driver Jason Leffler with a special throwback paint scheme. But his long-shot quest for a Wild Card berth hit another setback with a 30th-place finish after a pair of unscheduled pit stops and lackluster performance.

Hamlin, who missed four races after suffering a back injury in a crash at Auto Club Speedway on March 24, needs to climb into the 11th-20th range in points and collect at least a win or two to have a realistic chance at a Wild Card spot. Sunday, he dropped from 25th to 26th in points to stall his momentum.

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Biffle’s decision not to help remove trash from Edwards’ grille causes tension

RELATED: Quicken Loans 400 results | Updated Sprint Cup standings | Biffle gets win

BROOKLYN, Mich. — Carl Edwards felt his Roush Fenway Racing teammate should have helped him out.
 
Greg Biffle said that, given the gap between the two Fords, the timing and the fact that he was the race leader overruled any request for assistance.
 
Edwards was running second to Biffle with less than 50 laps remaining in Sundays’ Quicken Loans 400 at Michigan International Speedway when the temperature of his car’s engine became a cause for concern.
 
Trash on the grille created the issue, and Edwards was hopeful that Biffle would slow enough to let him close in and allow the air pressure to remove the debris.

How much longer could he run before harming the engine?
 
“Somebody get a motor man to make the decision for me,” Edwards radioed his crew “because I’m not going to make the decision."

"(We) didn’t get any help from our teammate, and he put us in a hole."

— Jimmy Fennig

Told the engine should be OK until he pitted, which he did a handful of laps later, Edwards overcame an untimely caution that fell shortly after his green-flag pit stop to finish eighth.
 
No help from the teammate, came the voice on the radio after the stop.
 
“He ain’t our teammate,” Edwards shot back.
 
Biffle, however, said he had other concerns. With the potential to end a 27-race winless streak looming in the windshield of his No. 16 Ford, and a healthy margin on the track, it was a risk he wasn’t willing to take.
 
“These races are very, very hard to win,” Biffle, who scored his 19th career win and the 1,000th win for Ford Motor Co. across NASCAR national series. “The last win I had was here. This is a competitive sport.”
 
It would be different, he said “if he was eight car-lengths back, and I didn’t know when I passed him he had something on his grille or I’d let him get it off then. And I don’t know if he did have something …”
 
Told of his teammate’s potential problem, Biffle responded “I can’t help him … not right now. This is my chance to win today, right here, and the 48 (of Jimmie Johnson) is coming. I don’t know if you know that or not, but the 48 is coming.”
 
Afterward, team co-owner Jack Roush defended the decision of Biffle and the No. 16 team.
 
“There are no team orders for that kind of thing,” Roush said, “but I do support the decision that Greg made to not give up his track position, and we’ll discuss that.”
 
Edwards, the Coors Light Pole Award winner, led three times for 16 laps, the last time at lap 150 before Biffle came zooming past.
 
His eighth-place finish enabled him to hold his No. 2 position in the points standings, and cut into Jimmie Johnson’s points lead. He now trails by 31.
 
“It’s a two way street, right?” Biffle said. “You ask that guy up there to climb back down the rock to help you or you wait for the guy that’s coming (up) and ask him for help.
 
“There’s two ways of doing it. … There are lots of options … and I had to get stuff off my grille several times.”
 
Crew chief Jimmy Fennig wasn’t pleased, citing the problems at the end of a race on the fact that the team “didn’t get any help from our teammate, and he put us in a hole.
 
“We were a bit too free,” Fennig said of the day’s battle on the 2-mile oval. “We finally got it (better) at the end, but we got paper in our grille.
 
“Tried to get the 16 (of Biffle) to help get it off and he didn’t want to help us.”

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Series leader Johnson, teammates all finish outside top 25

BROOKLYN, Mich. — Jeff Gordon couldn’t avoid a spinning Bobby Labonte.
 
Kasey Kahne slammed the wall in Turn 2.
 
And Dale Earnhardt Jr. needed 400 miles out of his car’s engine. He got only 262.
 
Leaving it up to Hendrick Motorsports teammate Jimmie Johnson to haul the mail and save the day.
 
Johnson, a five-time NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion, entered Sunday’s Quicken Loans 400 at Michigan International Speedway with 63 career wins. None had come at the 2-mile MIS.
 
And although he was closing on race leader Greg Biffle with less than 10 laps remaining, a flat tire inside the final five laps sent Johnson to pit road. He finished 28th.

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“We cut a right-front tire there at the end,” Johnson said, leaning back against the No. 48 entry as his crew scurried around in the background, preparing the car for the journey back to the team’s headquarters in Charlotte, N.C.
 
“I guess just running that hard trying to get through traffic and get to the No. 16 (of Biffle), we wore through the right-front. I’m kind of shocked because we didn’t have any issues (before that).
 
“Our strategy was throwing some challenges at us … and we just struggled with maintaining track position. But we had a fast car and I could drive up through there. As soon as I’d get to first or second, a caution would come out and then something would happen again and we’d lose track position.”
 
The 28th-place finish was the worst of the season for Johnson, but not enough to knock him off his perch atop the points standings. He leads Carl Edwards, who finished eighth, by 31.
 
As for the remainder of the HMS fleet?
 
Gordon was able to return after extensive repairs following his lap-6 incident, but fell five spots, to 16th in the points, with the 39th-place result.
 
Labonte “just did one of those slow spins where I couldn’t tell which direction he was going to go,” Gordon said, “so I had to guess and I guessed the wrong way. I didn’t really have anywhere to go.”
 
Kahne was leading when his No. 5 Chevrolet slid up the track and into the Turn 2 wall. The car briefly caught fire, but Kahne, uninjured, was able to exit without any issues.
 
“I would say it was a tire that went down, but I don’t know for sure,” said Kahne, who lost four points positions after finishing 38th. “I just was going into the corner and then it’ ‘boom’ and turned right went straight into the wall.
 
“Things were working out. I thought it was going to be between myself and Jimmie. We both had two really fast cars.”
 
Earnhardt Jr. had led 23 consecutive laps before his car’s engine began to sour — less than 30 laps after the Kahne incident. The 37th-place finish dropped him three spots in the standings, to seventh.
 
Off the pace a day earlier in practice, Earnhardt Jr. said he was “proud” of the work done by crew chief Steve Letarte and the No. 88 team to get the car turned around.
 
“They made a lot of great changes. And that car was just flying at the end there,” he said.
 
That speed was perhaps a silver lining for the group on an otherwise forgettable day.
 
“At least we weren’t running 25th with problems, that makes it all the worse,” Johnson said. “We have fast race cars and I’m proud of everybody at Hendrick.”

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The current FedEx driver pays tribute to the first driver of the No. 11 JGR car

BROOKLYN, Mich. – Denny Hamlin and the Joe Gibbs Racing organization are paying tribute to former JGR driver Jason Leffler today with a retro paint scheme on the team’s No. 11 Toyota.

The No. 11 entry features a FedEx paint design similar to that used in 2005, when Leffler made 19 starts in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series for the JGR organization. Hamlin’s crew worked Saturday evening to convert the look of the car in time for today’s Quicken Loans 400 at Michigan International Speedway.

Leffler died from injuries sustained in a Sprint Car crash June 12 at Bridgeport Speedway in Swedesboro, New Jersey.

A standout in the open-wheel sprint ranks where he won three consecutive Midget titles (1997-99), Leffler was winless in 73 starts in the Cup series. He scored two victories in NASCAR’s Nationwide Series and one in the sanctioning body’s Camping World Truck Series.

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NASCAR national series veteran dies after wreck

Driver Jason Leffler, who competed in 423 NASCAR national series races throughout his career, died Wednesday night following an accident at a sprint-car race in New Jersey.

Leffler’s final NASCAR race was at the Sprint Cup Series level last week, when he drove the No. 19 Toyota at Pocono Raceway.

According to local news reports, the driver was airlifted to the hospital after a crash at Bridgeport Speedway. He was pronounced dead shortly after 9 p.m.

Hamlin honors Leffler with paint scheme

NASCAR Sprint Cup Series driver Denny Hamlin and Joe Gibbs Racing pay tribute to the first FedEx driver, Jason Leffler. | Read the full story | Paint Scheme Preview | Jason Leffler coverage

Trust fund for Leffler’s son

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. A celebration of Jason Leffler’s life will be held on Wednesday, June 19. | Read the full story

Up To Speed: Drivers react to Leffler’s death

At Michigan International Speedway, NASCAR Sprint Cup Series drivers, who were friends and competitors of Jason Leffler, talked about losing Leffler in Wednesday’s sprint car accident. | Watch the video here

Leffler dies after wreck

Jason Leffler died Wednesday night following a crash at Bridgeport Speedway in New Jersey. A two-time winner in the NASCAR Nationwide Series, Leffler leaves behind a young son, Charlie. He was 37. | Read the full story

Inherent risk

"People that love to race will go to race. Jason (Leffler) loved to race." That’s a quote from Ricky Stenhouse Jr. as he and other drivers like Brad Keselowski talked to NASCAR.com’s Kenny Bruce in the aftermath of Leffler’s death. | Read the full story




Video tribute

NASCAR.com remembers Jason Leffler’s life and racing career via video. Included are clips of his national series victories. | Watch the video here

Fondly remembered

As news of Jason Leffler’s death spread, former teammates and team owners all remembered the driver in similar ways — as a great racer, a great teammate and a great man. | Read the full story

Racing community reacts

NASCAR drivers were hit hard by Jason Leffler’s death, and many took to Twitter and other forms of social media to honor their fallen friend. Here’s a collection of remembrances and stories from NASCAR drivers. | Read the full story

Photo timeline

See Jason Leffler’s NASCAR national series career milestones in this photo timeline. Starting in 1999 with Leffler’s win in a midget car to the awards ceremony in 2007 for finishing third in the NASCAR Nationwide Series (then called the Busch Series). | Read the full story

Return to racing roots

Jason Leffler drove in NASCAR’s biggest races, but he never forgot where he came from. So when a NASCAR ride didn’t materialize for 2013, he knew where to look — to the dirt tracks on which he grew up racing, David Caraviello writes. | Read the full story

National series stats

Read Jason Leffler’s career highlights, as well as a year-by-year breakdown of his time in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series, NASCAR Nationwide Series and NASCAR Camping World Truck Series. | Read the full story

Posted on by Staff Report

Check out the new looks hitting the track in Sprint Cup and Nationwide

Editor’s note: This story will be updated as additional paint schemes are revealed.

The NASCAR Sprint Cup and Nationwide series return to action this weekend at Michigan International Speedway.

Below are some of the special paint schemes you’ll see for the doubleheader from the Great Lake State.

RELATED: Purchase die-casts of your favorite drivers | Classic die-casts | NASCAR: An American Salute merchandise

Denny Hamlin will drive the No. 11 FedEx Express Toyota.

DONATE: Charlie Dean Leffler Discretionary Trust

Greg Biffle will drive the No. 16 3M Give Kids a Smile Ford.

SHOP: Greg Biffle die-casts

Austin Dillon will drive the No. 33 American Ethanol Chevrolet.

SHOP: Austin Dillon die-casts

AJ Allmendinger will drive the No. 47 Charter Toyota.

SHOP: AJ Allmendinger die-casts

Dale Earnhardt Jr. will drive the No. 88 National Guard Soldier of Steel Chevrolet.

SHOP: Dale Earnhardt Jr. die-casts

The following special paint schemes will take the track in the Nationwide Series’ Alliance Truck Parts 250:

Trevor Bayne will drive the No. 6 Roush CleanTech Ford.

SHOP: Trevor Bayne die-casts

Paul Menard will drive the No. 33 Menards Chevrolet.

SHOP: Paul Menard die-casts

Cole Whitt will drive the No. 44 Takagi Tankless Water Heaters Toyota.

SHOP: Cole Whitt die-casts