Eight years. Eight races. Eight different winners.

The beat goes on with Friday night's ninth running of the Peoples National Bank Jason Leffler Memorial for the USAC NOS Energy Drink Midget National Championship at Wayne County Speedway in Wayne City, Illinois.

Throughout the past decade, the event has sustained its unpredictability with a new feature winner emerging each year. The inaugural edition was held in 2013.

Just one past winner of the event is expected to compete in this year's installment of the Leffler Memorial, and he'd sure like to put an end to the string of different winners on an annual basis for a myriad of reasons.

Zach Daum captured the victory in the first Leffler Memorial and went on to also garner a fifth-place finish in 2014 and third in 2015. In 2021, he added an eight-place effort to his resume, when the event was moved indoors to the Southern Illinois Center for the first time. 

This year on the USAC tour, he's finished on the podium in three of his last four feature starts, but he is looking for his first USAC victory since 2014.

Cannon McIntosh (Bixby, Oklahoma) is the only driver to finish inside the top 4 during each of the past two runnings of the Leffler Memorial. He finished second in 2021, after leading the initial 13 laps. In 2020, he started on the pole and was in contention for the lead throughout much of the feature, before a Turn 3 fence bang dropped him back to fourth in the final running order.

Current point leader, reigning series champ and 10-time 2022 USAC National Midget feature winner Buddy Kofoid (Penngrove, California) was 17th in 2020 during his only previous Leffler Memorial start. 

 
He is one of seven entries out of the Keith Kunz/Curb-Agajanian Motorsports stable for the event, as Kunz vies for a USAC National Midget-record 134th victory as a series entrant. Kunz stands tied with Steve Lewis for No. 1 all-time with 133. However, a Kunz car has yet to win the Leffler Memorial.

The KKM stable also brings Leffler Memorial returnees Daison Pursley (Locust Grove, Oklahoma) and Kaylee Bryson (Muskogee, Oklahoma) back to the event for the first time since 2020. As rookies that year, Pursley finished fifth, while Bryson took 18th. 

Meanwhile, Brenham Crouch (Lubbock, Texas), Bryant Wiedeman (Colby, Kansas), Taylor Reimer (Bixby, Oklahoma) and Dominic Gorden (Clovis, California) are among those attempting to make their first Leffler Memorial feature starts Friday.

CB Industries comes into the event as the reigning winning team, after Christopher Bell captured the Leffler Memorial in 2021. The CBI team will sport two entries for the event with Mitchel Moles and Chase McDermand at the wheel. 

Moles (Raisin City, California), the leading series rookie, is fresh off a victory at Ohio's Eldora Speedway two weeks ago. He finished fifth at the Leffler Memorial in 2021. McDermand (Springfield, Illinois) will be making his Leffler debut.

Justin Grant (Ione, California) has recorded top-5 results in two of his past three starts at the Leffler Memorial, finishing a best of fourth in both 2014 and 2018, then fifth in 2019 and 10th in 2020. 

Grant also was a feature starter in the inaugural Leffler Memorial in 2013. His RMS Racing teammate, Thomas Meseraull (San Jose, California), will make his return to the Leffler Memorial, after making his only previous start in the event in 2019, finishing 16th.

After sweeping last weekend's pair of USAC AMSOIL Sprint Car National Championship features at Kokomo and Lawrenceburg, Kyle Cummins (Princeton, Indiana) is eying a second career Leffler Memorial start, after finishing seventh in the 2020 main, while also setting a 10-lap track record of 1:51.378 during a 10-lap heat race.

Series rookie Jacob Denney (Galloway, Ohio) will make his Leffler Memorial debut Friday. He previously won this season with the USAC National Midgets at Lincoln Park Speedway during Indiana Midget Week. The two-time USAC Midwest Thunder SpeeD2 Midget titlist will be one of two Mounce-Stout Motorsports entries for the race, along with micro sprint standout Talin Turner (Basehor, Kansas).

Chance Crum (Snohomish, Washington) will make his comeback this weekend, after a wild crash at Eldora on Sept. 24. He finished on the podium in his Leffler Memorial debut in 2021, finishing third. 

Hayden Reinbold (Gilbert, Arizona) also returns for his second Leffler Memorial appearance following a 20th-place result in 2020. 

Furthermore, series veterans Ethan Mitchell (Mooresville, North Carolina) and BCRA Midget champion Maria Cofer (Macdoel, California) plan to make their first Leffler Memorial starts Friday, along with many more.

Bringin' the heat. ?

3 drivers enter Friday's #LefflerMemorial at Wayne City with top-4 finishes in three of their past four USAC @NosEnergyDrink National Midget starts.@DaumMotorsports | 3rd-6th-3rd-3rd@Bryant_Wiedeman | 4th-22nd-2nd-2nd@MichaelKofoid | 1st-1st-3rd-14th pic.twitter.com/kftvbkwf4B

— USAC Racing (@USACNation) October 6, 2022

The $5,000-to-win event honors the life and memory of Leffler, the four-time USAC National driving champion (1997, 1998, 1999 Midget & 1998 Silver Crown) who lost his life in a sprint car accident at New Jersey's Bridgeport Speedway in June 2013.

The 40-lap main event will pay feature points only to USAC nationally licensed drivers and teams, with all non-transfers receiving 10 appearance points.

Friday at Wayne City, the grandstands open at 5 p.m. Central, with the drivers' meeting at 6 p.m. Hot laps will get underway at 6:30 p.m., with racing immediately following. 

Adult general admission tickets are $30. Kids 12 & under are free. Pit passes are $30 for members and $35 for non-members. Non-Wing Outlaw Micros, Restrictors and Junior Sprints also will be on hand.

It's all part of a doubleheader weekend for the USAC NOS Energy Drink Midget National Championship. 

On Saturday, at Tri-State Speedway in Haubstadt, Indiana, Harvest Cup will feature the series, along with MSCS Sprint Cars and MMSA Mini Sprints.

Both of this weekend's USAC NOS Energy Drink Midget National Championship events can be watched LIVE on FloRacing. To watch, click here.