{"id":5908,"date":"2008-02-20T07:01:00","date_gmt":"2008-02-20T07:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lbpost.com\/articles\/sports\/nascar-s-leffler-makes-lb-return-at-smooth-s-tonight-2\/"},"modified":"2008-02-20T07:01:00","modified_gmt":"2008-02-20T07:01:00","slug":"nascar-s-leffler-makes-lb-return-at-smooth-s-tonight-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/nascar-s-leffler-makes-lb-return-at-smooth-s-tonight-2","title":{"rendered":"NASCAR&#8217;s Leffler Makes LB Return At Smooth&#8217;s Tonight"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><div style='float:left;padding-right:10px;padding-bottom:5px;'><img src='images\/archive\/sports\/photo4543912.jpg' align='left' \/><\/div>\n<p>                 The Grand Prix is still two months away, but racing is already in the air as Long Beach&rsquo;s own Jason Leffler takes some time away from his busy NASCAR schedule to hang out at Smooth&rsquo;s Sports Bar &amp; Grille tonight from 6-8pm.<\/p>\n<p>In town for this weekend&rsquo;s race at the California Speedway in Fontana, the driver of the #38 Toyota Camry will be honored at Smooth&rsquo;s by having his firesuit and helmet hung on the wall.&nbsp; Leffler made history last year as the first driver to bring a Toyota to a NASCAR victory at O&rsquo;Reilly Raceway Park in July.&nbsp; This season, he takes his first shot at competing in the NASCAR Nationwide Series championship.<\/p>\n<p>Racing midget cars before moving to NASCAR, Leffler became the first driver in 37 years to win three straight National Midget titles.&nbsp; He also picked up a Silver Crown National Championship before moving to the bigtime.<\/p>\n<p>lbpost.com will be there to celebrate with Smooth&rsquo;s and catch a few words with Jason.&nbsp; Hope to see you there!<\/p>\n<p>*<\/p>\n<p>In a local sports update (remember, we promised to be your source for this), both Moore League boys&#8217; teams advanced despite tough competition in the CIF playoffs<font style=\"font-size: 9pt;\" face=\"Trebuchet MS\">&mdash;<\/font><a href=\"http:\/\/www.presstelegram.com\/sports\/ci_8309808\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Compton with a 94-86 win<\/a> over Gahr and <a href=\"http:\/\/latimesblogs.latimes.com\/varsitytimesinsider\/2008\/02\/boys-basketb-14.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Wilson pulling off a huge upset<\/a> by downing Simi Valley.<\/p>\n<p>Catch Compton in action this Friday against Santa Margarita, and keep an eye on the surging Bruins<font style=\"font-size: 9pt;\" face=\"Trebuchet MS\">&mdash;<\/font>riding a wave since the middle of League play &#8211; as they face Mayfair on Friday.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking of local b-ball, your Lady Jackrabbits are currently ranked #3 in the nation at 22-2, and match up with San Juan Capistrano Serra tonight.&nbsp; Dang, look at Moore League basketball making a name for itself!<\/p>\n<p>    *<\/p>\n<p>Recently updated:&nbsp; Compton&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/sportsillustrated.cnn.com\/2008\/writers\/kevin_armstrong\/02\/20\/mcd.roster\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Demar DeRozan was just named to the 2008 McDonald&#8217;s All-American West squad<\/a>, comprised of the West Coast&#8217;s top twelve players.&nbsp; It&#8217;s just the latest in a long line of accolades for the 6&#8217;6 high-flyer, who will attend USC in the Fall and immediately dunk over everyone in the Pac-10.<\/p>\n<p>See <a href=\"newsdesk.php?id=422&amp;item=751\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">highlights of DeRozan<\/a> from the game against Lakewood that the lbpost.com <span style=\"font-style: italic;\">Sports Night<\/span> crew attended in January.<\/p>\n<p>    That West squad is going to be scary with Jrue Holliday (UCLA), Brandon Jennings (Arizona) and DeRozan.&nbsp; But what kind of list is that without Fairfax&#8217;s&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/rivalshoops.rivals.com\/viewprospect.asp?Sport=2&amp;pr_key=41967\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Renardo Sidney<\/a><font style=\"font-size: 9pt;\" face=\"Trebuchet MS\">&mdash;<\/font>probably the best big man in the West despite being just a junior.&nbsp; Latest word is that the athletic 6&#8217;10 banger is being heavily courted by Arizona State, where Sidney could potentially team up with former Artesia teammate James Harden to make the Sun Devils an instant Pac-10 contender.<\/p>\n<p>Good times for CA prep basketball.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","inline_featured_image":false,"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":"","_":"","_author_alias":"","cap-aim":"","cap-description":"","cap-display_name":"","cap-first_name":"","cap-jabber":"","cap-last_name":"","cap-linked_account":"","cap-newspack_employer":"","cap-newspack_job_title":"","cap-newspack_phone_number":"","cap-newspack_role":"","cap-user_email":"","cap-user_login":"","cap-website":"","cap-yahooim":"","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_email_html":"","newspack_email_type":"","newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_hide_page_title":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_show_share_buttons":"","newspack_sponsor_byline_prefix":"","newspack_sponsor_disclaimer_override":"","newspack_sponsor_flag_override":"","newspack_sponsor_only_direct":"","newspack_sponsor_url":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-5908","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5908","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5908"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5908\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5908"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5908"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5908"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=5908"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=5908"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}