Racing for his job, Yeley finds the finish he needs
Fuel gamble pays off for second-place finish at Lowe's
By David Caraviello, NASCAR.COM
May 30, 2007
10:36 AM EDT

J.J. Yeley says he doesn't read the newspapers, and probably doesn't need to. It's doubtful that no one but the driver is more aware he has only the rest of this season remaining on his contract with Joe Gibbs Racing, while the biggest free agent in modern NASCAR history lurks in the Nextel Cup garage.

With Dale Earnhardt Jr. looking for a new home and the officials within the Gibbs organization almost certainly more interested than they're letting on, the microscope of speculation has centered squarely on Yeley, an affable former sprint-car champion in his second season in NASCAR's big leagues. One teammate, Tony Stewart, is a multiple champion. Another, Denny Hamlin, has developed into a title threat in just two years.

Meanwhile Yeley continues to search for that breakthrough, which might have come Sunday night when the No. 18 car finished second behind Casey Mears in the Coca-Cola 600 at Lowe's Motor Speedway. Yeley's career-best Nextel Cup finish came one week after team owner Joe Gibbs informed the driver that his future was in his hands.

"As far as being on the hot seat, if I get fired, I get fired," Yeley said bluntly. "There are a couple of other places I can go. I'm not worried about having a ride. If I couldn't find anything in Nextel Cup, I'll go back to racing sprint cars. That's all I know how to do. That's what I'm going to do. I'm going to drive a racecar, regardless of whether it's here or somewhere else. My job is to go out there and win races. This is obviously a good step in the right direction."

Like Mears, Yeley found himself on the positive side of a low-fuel gamble at the end of the race, when other contenders like Stewart and Jimmie Johnson were forced to stop briefly for a splash-and-go. For the first time, he has four consecutive Nextel Cup finishes inside the top 20. Heading to Dover he stands 15th in points, only 59 behind Jamie McMurray, who occupies the 12th and final spot as the circuit reaches the halfway mark to the Chase.

But he knows he has to build on Sunday's runner-up finish if he hopes to secure his position as the third driver in the Gibbs stable.

"I can only do what I can do," he said. "Joe Gibbs Racing gives me excellent equipment. I can go out there and drive the wheels off a car. If I catch the breaks, we can run second. If I don't catch the breaks, we're going to get caught a lap down because we pitted or we didn't pit. This is just the first time probably in my two years in Cup racing that I didn't catch the bad break."

He pointed to a similar situation last year at Homestead, Fla., where he stayed out on low fuel, was burned by a caution, and finished 30th. "I've always ran into bad luck," he said. "I can't blame it on anything else, other than just going out there and trying to do my best. So, maybe this will cut me a little slack from you media people for at least a couple of weeks."

He sees some signs of progress -- cars built to suit him a little better, and improved communication with crew chief Steve Addington. And he gets a little defensive over his results from his rookie season, where he finished 29th in points and never cracked the top five.

"Last year, I had the worst season I've ever had in my life racing," he said. "Obviously, it's easy to pick on me. I was caught up in the most accidents -- I read that somewhere in the paper. Statistics show that I was in a wreck 40 percent of the time. But it didn't show that I cut a tire down half the time or I got wrecked by someone else, because you don't watch the race looking for the No. 18 racecar on the racetrack. You don't know what happened other than, at the end of the day, I was wrecked."

He didn't wreck Sunday, nursing enough mileage out of his green No. 18 car to earn a result he sorely needed. But Earnhardt is still looking for a ride. The Gibbs team is still in the mix. And that microscope isn't going away anytime soon.

"I can't control what you write," Yeley told reporters after the race. "And I can't let what you write affect what I do on the racetrack. I can only do what I can do."

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