Jimmy Leiby finished second in the sportsman race, his first feature of two last Saturday. He had high hopes for his subsequent race in the 602 sportsman class. However, it ended with a flip at Grandview Speedway in Bechtelsville, Pennsylvania.
Earlier in the second feature, a flat tire relegated Leiby to the rear of the pack. He worked with way through the field until his victory lane aspirations came to a crashing halt during a restart.
“Everyone was checking up coming out of turn four,” Leiby, 18, of West Milford, New Jersey, said. “I had a full head of steam and my right went up onto the left rear of the car in front of me. The front axle broke, my car hit the ground and flipped over, landing on all fours.”
In four years of competing in crate-powered sportsman modifieds, Leiby never flipped a car before.
“Ten seconds felt like two minutes,” said Leiby. “It was really like the ‘Talladega Nights’ movie scene where Ricky Bobby flipped in slow motion. It was strange to be upside-down. I felt weightlessness and saw the Jersey barrier getting closer and closer.”
Leiby emerged from the wrecked car with only a bruise on his knee. He sat in a Kirkey full-containment seat, with a Crow Safety Gear five-point harness. Leiby wore a Simpson Viper helmet paired with a NecksGen head-and-neck restraint.
His car, a 2021 Hig Fab chassis, incurred repairable damage.
“We found that the engine had shifted,” Leiby said. “We picked up two new motor mounts on Sunday, a front axle, and a left-rear axle tube. We’ll have the car ready for Saturday night. We’re [sixth] in the points and we have to keep on racing.”
Jimmy Leiby plans to make his modified debut on Thursday at Grandview Speedway. He’ll steer his brother Jesse’s second modified, with a small-block engine from Jesse’s car owner, Dave Eastlake. (For more on Jesse Leiby, read “Jesse Leiby: Positive Attitude Despite String of DNFs”.)
“Jesse and Dave put it together for me in order to get laps in a modified,” Leiby said. “We’ll hopefully be driving it in several small-block shows for the rest of the season.”
Mike Adaskaveg has written hundreds of stories since the website’s inception. This year marks his 54th year of covering auto racing. Adaskaveg got his start working for track photographer Lloyd Burnham at Connecticut’s Stafford Motor Speedway in 1970. Since then, he’s been a columnist, writer, and photographer, in racing and in mainstream media, for several outlets, including the Journal Inquirer, Boston Herald, Stock Car Racing, and Speedway Illustrated. Among Adaskaveg’s many awards are the 1992 Eastern Motorsport Press Association (EMPA) Ace Lane Photographer of the Year and the 2019 National Motorsports Press Association (NMPA) George Cunningham Writer of the Year.
