Biography
Name: James Leffew
Born: July 31st, 1991
Family: Jim Leffew(father), Theresa Leffew(mother), and Brian Leffew(brother)
Hometown: Quincy, IL
James has always been a fan of racing. He went to Quincy Raceways every week when he was younger to watch his dad race in “B” Modified class. When James got older around the age of 13 he would go into the pits with his dad to help work on the car. James also began to pack the track in his dads “B” Modified.
James began racing go-karts when he was eight years old racing at such tracks as TNT in West Quincy, and Pittsfield Speedway. His go-kart racing career lasted two years. He finished second in points at Pittsfield Speedway in 2000.
In 2006 he began his racing career at Quincy Raceways driving a 1998 Dodge Neon in the Hornet class. For being his first year racing, the 2006 season went very well for James. Achievements in the 2006 racing season include, 2nd in points, best appearing car, and perfect attendance.
In 2007 James moved up to the Hobby Stock class, driving a 1985 Chevrolet Monte Carlo. Mid way through the season James had some bad luck that caused him to miss a few weeks of racing. Consequently, he finished 12th in points. He did receive the award for being the youngest driver.
In 2008 James ran Hobby Stocks again; this time, with a little more luck. He had the most overall wins for the Hobby Stock class. 10 total; six in heat races, four in features, accumulated the most Herald Whig Performance points, the most feature laps led, and second overall in money earned for the season. Achievements in the 2008 racing season include, finishing 6th in points, youngest driver award, and perfect attendance.
In the 2009 racing season James drove two race cars in two different divisions; the modifieds and the hobby stocks. Both had many ups and downs. He was able to keep both cars going for the first three or four races until the modified was involved in a wreck along with many other drivers completely destroying the rear end of the car. Prior to that wreck James had actually been competing with the UMP modified in a sport mod that was meant to run at Lee County Speedway full time. They found out that they were actually illegal to race at Lee County because the decking on the car was not level. Thus James was forced to run with the Quincy Raceways UMP modifieds. After the wreck they turned the modified into a four-bar read end set-up and received a much better engine from Triple R Performance Engines. Although it was a four-bar rear end set-up like the other cars it wasn’t built nearly as well because it would have been too time consuming to correctly fabricate it. During the time when the modified was being rebuilt James was dominating in the hobby stock division, and on his way to what looked like an easy championship. Soon he was back to running both cars until approximately five weeks away from finishing the season James is involved in a violent roll over in the hobby stock. The cause of the rollover was the right rear tire broke off going into turn one. After that James finished out the season driving the modified and trying to get caught up with experience that he had missed for a few weeks while the modified was in the shop. James ran a few other tracks besides Quincy and had a rough and unlucky year but he gained some valuable experience. Once the season was over the hobby stock was sold and the modified was put on jack stands really to be transformed for the 2010 racing season.
