Butch Leitzinger | |||||||
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Leitzinger at Road America in 2014
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Nationality | American | ||||||
Born | Robert Franklin Leitzinger February 28, 1969 Homestead, Pennsylvania |
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Pirelli World Challenge career | |||||||
Debut season | 2014 | ||||||
Current team | Dyson Racing | ||||||
Car no. | 20 | ||||||
Starts | 7 | ||||||
Best finish | 11th in 2014 | ||||||
Finished last season | 11th | ||||||
Previous series | |||||||
1999–2013 1998–2012 1994–1996, 2007 1994–1996, 2000, 2006 1993–1996 |
ALMS Grand-Am NASCAR Nextel Cup Series NASCAR Busch Series NASCAR Busch North Series |
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Championship titles | |||||||
1999 | Rolex Sports Car Series | ||||||
24 Hours of Le Mans career | |||||||
Participating years | 1997, 1999–2003 | ||||||
Teams |
David Price Racing Panoz Motorsports Team Bentley Risi Competizione |
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Best finish | 3rd (2001 | ||||||
Class wins | 2 (2001, 2002) | ||||||
Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series career | |||||||
4 races run over 4 years | |||||||
Best finish | 54th (1995) | ||||||
First race | 1994 The Bud at The Glen (Watkins Glen) | ||||||
Last race | 2007 Toyota/Save Mart 350 (Infineon) | ||||||
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NASCAR Xfinity Series career | |||||||
5 races run over 5 years | |||||||
Best finish | 78th (1996) | ||||||
First race | 1996 Fay's 150 (Watkins Glen) | ||||||
Last race | 2006 Zippo 200 (Watkins Glen) | ||||||
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Robert Franklin "Butch" Leitzinger (born February 28, 1969) is a professional racing driver. He is best known as an ALMS driver with Dyson Racing, but he has also driven for a variety of other teams and race series.
Leitzinger has driven for the Bentley factory team at Le Mans in 2001 and 2002, for the Cadillac team at Le Mans in 2000 and for Panoz at Le Mans in 1999. Leitzinger has also driven in the GT classification for Risi Competizione at Le Mans in 2003. Leitzinger was also named 2002 Rookie of the Year in the Trans-Am Series. Butch drove the Alex Job Racing (AJR) # 81 Porsche GT3 car in the first four events in the American Le Mans Series GTC class for the 2010 season with Juan Gonzales earning victories at the 2010 12 Hours of Sebring as well as at Long Beach and a podium finish at Laguna Seca resulting in the duo achieving a healthy lead in the points standings before unfortunate circumstances forced Alex Job Racing to down size to a single car effort with the #23 car for the remainder of the season.
Leitzinger spent the 2011 season as a substitute driver when needed and as a third driver during endurance races. As a substitute, Leitzinger ran a total of two ALMS races, one of which was the Lime Rock race in which he and Bill Sweedler finished third in class in the AJR GTC Porsche. The other race was the Road America race in which he drove the PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports LMPC car with Rudy Junco and on his first time ever driving an LMPC car and the first time with the team Leitzinger qualified on pole in class and along with Junco, won the race in class. As a third driver in endurance races Leitzinger drove along with Humaid Al Masaood and Steven Kane in the # 20 Oryx Dyson Racing car at Laguna Seca and Road Atlanta. At Laguna Seca the 20 car led much of the race and finished in third. In the Petit Le Mans at Road Atlanta the car was sidelined early with a throttle position sensor problem. Shortly after returning to the track something in the left rear of the car broke as Leitzinger rounded turn 1 at about 150 mph (240 km/h) which sent him off the track and hard into the tires ending the day for the 20 car.
It was later announced that Leitzinger would drive the full 2012 season in the ALMS in the PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports LMPC car. The 2012 season will reunite the successful combination from Road America 2011 of PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports, Leitzinger, and Junco, who were co-drivers for the majority of the 2012 season.