RCR's Stephen Leicht looking forward to big weekend at Kentucky Speedway
Richard Childress Racing's Stephen Leicht will make his third start of the season in the NASCAR Nationwide Series race from Kentucky Speedway. // LaDon George, NASCAR Scene
Two years ago, Stephen Leicht stunned the NASCAR world when he won his first race at Kentucky Speedway is what is now known as the Nationwide Series.
But after that season, Leicht found himself on the sidelines, so only now does he get a chance to defend his title. After a long, strange trip, the young driver landed at Richard Childress Racing and will drive the organization’s No. 29 Chevrolet in this weekend’s Meijer 300 at the 1.5-mile track.
“I wish we were there already,” Leicht said last weekend at Nashville Superspeedway, where he finished sixth. “I was looking forward to this week at Nashville, too, because it’s a good warmup for Kentucky. I can get myself back in a race car for a full race, get all the laps in, get a good finish and be totally prepared when I go [to Kentucky].”
Leicht has had the Kentucky race circle on his calendar for some time. After finishing out the 2007 season, Leicht was without a ride when Robert Yates Racing shut down its Nationwide team.
Once a promising young driver who seemed destined for Cup stardom, Leicht found himself without a ride. He was frustrated this time last year when he couldn’t defend his Kentucky win and instead watched Joey Logano win.
“You always look forward to going back to a place where you’ve won, but I didn’t get to race there last year and defend my title,” Leicht said. “In a way, I feel like I’m defending it at the same [time] Joey’s defending his. It’s going to be a battle between me and him.”
There will be plenty of other drivers contending for the win, of course, but perhaps no one has more incentive that Leicht.
“He’s excited to get in the car every week,” crew chief Doug Randolph said. “And then he’s excited to know that he’s going to be racing three weeks in a row. If you’re in the seat and then out of it for a month or two and then you’re back in it, you don’t fall into that rhythm like you do when you’re racing every week.
“He has had this circled on his calendar for quite a while because he’s ready to go back. You can just tell.”
And Leicht is more than ready to race. He’s ready to win, Randolph said, despite racing only twice this year and only seven times since the end of the 2007 season.
“We ran fairly well in Nashville,” Randolph said. “These couple weeks, you don’t get as many Cup drivers [competing in Nationwide events], so sometimes that makes it easier. He picked right up there at Nashville, and we finished sixth. If things would’ve gone how we wanted them to, we probably could’ve finished fourth. And that’s just a step away from winning.”
That’s where Leicht was two years ago, when he held off good friend Brad Coleman to score his first career NASCAR victory.
“It was just the perfect weekend,” Leicht said. “You couldn’t have asked for anything better.”
