BUFFALO TWP - Win or lose, it's hard to find Rod George without a smile on his face.

Known for his quick wit and good sense of humor, the veteran driver of the No. 4 silver Sprint car is smiling for a different reason these days: He's off to the best start of his 22-year Sprint racing career.

"We've been known for coming on during the second half of the season," George admitted. "There was never any reason for that. It just always seems to take us a while to get going."

Not this year.

George won his 11th feature of the season last weekend at Tri-City Speedway in Franklin, only two days after rallying from a 15th-place starting spot to a third-place finish in an All-Star Sprint race at Lernerville Speedway.

He owns two career All-Star Sprint victories at Sharon Speedway and in Findlay, Ohio. He won All-Star Sprint Rookie of the Year honors in 1988.

"But that was years ago," George said. "We haven't come close to winning one of those features since."

If the 35-lap feature Friday at Lernerville had lasted a couple of more laps - or had a couple of restarts - the Kittanning driver might have ended that drought.

Regardless, he has been in victory lane early and often in 2005. The win at Tri-City was his fourth in a row there. George already owns two feature wins and two heat race wins at Lernerville.

Ed Lynch Jr., Lernerville's career Sprint feature win leader with 74, also has two feature wins at the Sarver track and three heat victories. George and Lynch each have five top-three finishes at Lernerville.

"We've been able to stay competitive with Ed to this point," George said. "But he's still the best Sprint driver in Western Pennsylvania.

"He certainly rates an edge over me - and Lernerville is still Ed Lynch's track."

But George is putting up Lynch-like numbers. With nine weeks left in the points season, George is leading the Sprint points races at Lernerville, Mercer Raceway Park and Tri-City.

"He's never won three points titles in a year," crew chief Ronn Libeccio said of George. "Nobody can predict something like that, but so far, so good.

"Everything's come together for us this year. Our race team knows each other so well. We've been waiting for a year like this to happen."

After driving for about a dozen car owners in his Sprint racing career, George took a year off to put together his own deal.

"I raced for so many people, ran around all over the place - I was getting burned out," George said. "I decided to go at it on my own."

He came back to win points titles at Lernerville and Tri-City in 2002. Now, his race team, which includes himself, his father Duane George, Bob Stewart and Glenn Kilgore, all from the Kittanning area, and Libeccio of East Brady has been together five years now.

"We communicate about the car so well that we barely have to speak," George said. "I say what the car's doing, they know what's wrong.

"We've just been on top of it from the start this year. The new equipment's been a big factor, too."

George switched to a Maxim chassis and Hoosier tires this season.

Winning is nothing new to George, of course. He recently broke Lou Blaney's career track record, which stood since 1981, by notching his 29th Sprint feature win at Tri-City.

George owns 34 career wins at Tri-City and 28 at Lernerville, where he stands sixth on the all-time list. He's won more than 75 Sprint features in his career.

"Rod is a seasoned veteran who never gets overly excited," Libeccio said. "He's an even-keel person and that helps him in racing."

Racing go-karts helped him as well. George began racing go-karts at age 8 and went on to capture more than 100 feature wins and 14 track championships.

He was runner-up in the World Kart Championships in 1980.

"A lot of good Sprint car drivers came up from the go-karts," George said. "You learn car control there. You have to know throttle and foot control to run a go-kart and a Sprint car.

"I know my years in go-karts have helped me."

Indeed. The numbers speak for themselves.