Twelth-Place Finish Gives Interstate Batteries Team Momentum and Confidence to Kickstart 2007 Season
True Speed Communication For Joe Gibbs Racing Communications, Press Release
Date: Feb. 18, 2007
Event: Daytona 500
Series: NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series
Location: Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway
Start/Finish: 12th/12th (completed 202 of 202 laps)
Winner: Kevin Harvick of Richard Childress Racing (Chevrolet) in a green/white/checker finish
J.J. Yeley used patience, perseverance and a bit of good luck to avoid four accidents in the last 50 laps to bring the No. 18 Interstate Batteries Chevrolet home to a 12th-place finish in Sunday’s 49th Daytona 500 NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series season-opener at Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway.
“It was chaos is what it was,” said Yeley of the last 50 laps. “From the get go we had a really good car. I’m definitely pleased for everyone here with the Interstate Batteries Chevrolet. It seemed like last year whenever there was a wreck, I was in it. I dodged a bullet and missed them all by a hair.”
While Yeley qualified in 12th place by virtue of his sixth-place finish in Thurday’s Gatorade Duel qualifying race, he was forced to start the race from the rear of the 43-car field after the Interstate Batteries crew found a leak in the transmission after Saturday’s final practice. During Speedweeks in Daytona, each team is allowed one engine change and one transmission change. The team had already switched a transmission during the weekend, so crew chief Steve Addington made the switch because he didn’t want to take any chances for the season’s biggest race.
Early in the race, starting in the back proved difficult, as the first part of the 202-lap contest saw several long green flag runs along with green flag pit stops. By the lap 64 caution, Yeley had worked from the back of the field all the way up to 25th after picking his way through the field, which was augmented by two excellent pit stops by the Interstate Batteries team.
On lap 79, the caution waved again, and Yeley again brought the car to pit road, this time for a planned two tire stop in hopes of gaining some track position. But as the car came down off the jack, the bolt on the sway bar jammed the steering box, preventing Yeley from turning the wheel. Fortunately, the team was able to fix the problem, but not before losing precious track position and restarting from 38th.
“I think we only had one run where we got really, really tight,” said Yeley. “Steve (Addington) got the car tuned back in. It’s all about having a dancing partner here and I couldn’t find anyone that wanted to draft with me. I could always push other cars through. I just couldn’t get enough people lined up behind me to where we could take the car to the front.”
With very few caution periods and the blistering pace of the race’s first 150 laps, Yeley rode around the 2.5-mile oval near 30th position until the race took a sudden turn on lap 151. That’s when Yeley’s Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Tony Stewart got loose coming out of turn four, was nudged by Kurt Busch, with both cars hitting the wall.
Next, on lap 175, Jimmie Johnson bounced off the wall exiting turn two, collecting the cars of fellow JGR driver Denny Hamlin, Tony Raines, David Reutimann and Jeff Green, with Yeley just sliding by on the outside.
After making another pit stop for fuel and tires, Yeley snuck by the next big wreck involving the cars of Clint Bowyer, Carl Edwards, Ken Schrader and Dave Blaney on lap 187.
The caution flew again less than 10 laps later, with Yeley sneaking by an accident involving Dale Earnhardt Jr., Jamie McMurray and Jeff Green that resulted in a red flag period on lap 197 to clean up the wreckage, which set the stage for a green-white-checker two-lap shootout to the finish.
After restarting 19th with two laps to go, Yeley moved to the outside and gained several positions, then dodged the final bullet of the day as several cars wrecked when Kyle Busch got loose and was tapped by Matt Kenseth, damaging their cars, and collecting several more cars, including those of David Stremme, Jeff Gordon, Hamlin, Sterling Marlin and Bowyer – among others.
“There at the end I just got sick of not having any help and decided that I was going to be selfish to do what I could for myself, got past a bunch of cars, and then coming off turn four they all started wrecking,” said Yeley of the last lap carnage. “Without the wreck we’d still probably finish about 14th, but I picked up a bunch of positions and the car doesn’t have a scratch on it.”
Kevin Harvick won the Daytona 500 to score his 11th career Nextel Cup victory and first at Daytona. Mark Martin finished second by .020 of a second, while Harvick’s Richard Childress Racing teammate Jeff Burton finished third. Mike Wallace and rookie David Ragan rounded out the top-five. Elliott Sadler, Kasey Kahne, pole-sitter David Gilliland, Joe Nemechek and Jeff Gordon comprised the remainder of the top-10.
Unofficially, Yeley leaves Daytona 12th in the point standings, 63-points behind leader Harvick and three points behind 11th -place David Stremme.
The next event on the Nextel Cup schedule is the Feb. 25 Auto Club 500 at California Speedway in Fontana. The race begins at 3:30 p.m. EST with live, high-definition, coverage provided by FOX.
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Late Race Incident Spoils Homecoming for Yeley
Interstate Batteries Team Finishes 21st after Running 12th Late in Race
True Speed Communication For Joe Gibbs Racing, Press Release
Date: April 21, 2007
Event: Subway Fresh Fit 500k (Round 8 of 36)
Series: NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series
Location: Phoenix International Raceway (1-mile oval)
Start/Finish: 18th/43rd (Running, completed 311 of 312 laps)
Winner: Jeff Gordon of Hendrick Motorsports (Chevrolet)
Home is usually where the heart is, but on Saturday night, Phoenix native J.J. Yeley only found heartache after the Subway Fresh Fit 500k at Phoenix International Raceway.
Yeley, driver of the No. 18 Interstate Batteries Chevrolet Impala SS for Joe Gibbs Racing, ran in the 12th position with under 30 laps remaining, but suffered damage trying to avoid an accident just ahead of him on lap 284. While the team made timely repairs, Yeley had to resign himself to a 21st-place finish.
As the car of Dave Blaney headed for pit road ahead of Yeley, Carl Edwards didn’t see him moving off the banking. Contact was made, and Blaney was sent spinning into Kenny Wallace. Yeley checked up behind Blaney in an effort to avoid the accident, but ended up spinning himself and making contact with Blaney’s car, damaging the right side of the Interstate Batteries car.
“The spotter for the 22 (Blaney) stood up and waved to say that he was pitting,” said Yeley. “My spotter told me he was coming in when we were going down the back straightaway, and as we were coming into turns three and four you could see him drop two tires on the apron like he was getting ready to go. A lot of guys use the apron to turn the race cars and the 99 (Edwards) looked like he ran him over from behind. I had no place to go because the 22 spun back up the race track and I hit him on the right side and heavily damaged the right side of the car.”
Yeley started the race in the 22nd position and quickly moved up through the field. He was in 16th when those on the lead lap headed to pit road on Lap 100. The Interstate Batteries crew got Yeley out in the same position, but Yeley had to make a return trip the very next lap for missing lugnuts, which caused him to restart in 30th. Nonetheless, Yeley methodically worked his way through the field to 17th by the second to last caution on Lap 211.
When the green flag waved on Lap 218, Yeley again began picking off positions and moved into the top-15. He was in 12th when the late-race accident happened ahead of him.
“We had a really good car at that point and I think we finally got the chassis where we needed to,” said Yeley. “If we had a horrible race car and we were running 30th, then that would be one thing, but we had a top-10 race car and this was going to be a race that was going to get us headed back in the right direction after last week in Texas. I guess it could have been worse, but 21st after we had a top-10 car is definitely disappointing.”
Even though the finish could have been worse, it might have been a little bit tougher to take in front of the hometown crowd.
“I’m going to say it stings a little bit more,” said Yeley of his homecoming. “I was a little giddy when they announced my name across the pre-race stage because the crowd went nuts. You have someone like me in my second year and you don’t get the superstar cheers like a Tony Stewart, Jeff Gordon or Dale Jr. I just wanted to do well for everyone here in Phoenix.”
Yeley’s Joe Gibbs Racing (JGR) teammates – Denny Hamlin and Tony Stewart – finished second and third, respectively. Hamlin continues to be the lead JGR driver in the championship point race, as his third-place finish helped him stay fifth in the standings. Stewart and Yeley occupy the seventh and 22nd positions, respectively. Stewart gained two spots while Yeley maintained his position.
Gordon’s victory in the Subway Fresh Fit 500k was the 76th of his career, tying him with the late Dale Earnhardt for sixth on NASCAR’s all-time win list. It was Gordon’s first win at Phoenix, and the first by a pole winner in 22 Nextel Cup races at Phoenix.
Finishing fourth behind Stewart and Hamlin was Jimmie Johnson, while Matt Kenseth rounded out the top-five. Jeff Green, Kyle Busch, Bobby Labonte, Johnny Sauter and Kevin Harvick comprised the remainder of the top-10.
The next event on the Nextel Cup schedule is the April 29 Aaron’s 499 at Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway. The race begins at 2 p.m. EDT with live, high-definition coverage provided by FOX.
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Dont forget the USAC Silver Crown cars are running a 50 lapper at Darlington Thursday night. Sirius has said they will cover it still no word on TV coverage.
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True Speed Communication For Joe Gibbs Racing, Press Release
HUNTERSVILLE, N.C., (May 22, 2007) – Even though J.J. Yeley has yet to win a NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series race, he has taken note of a very interesting statistic leading into this weekend’s Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte (N.C) Motor Speedway.
If Yeley, driver of the No. 18 Interstate Batteries Chevrolet for Joe Gibbs Racing (JGR), were to make it to victory lane on Sunday night, he would join an impressive list of drivers who won their first-ever Nextel Cup race at the Coca-Cola 600 – the series’ longest race of the year.
The list reads like a who’s who of the sport’s past and present, including the likes of David Pearson (1961), Jeff Gordon (1994), Matt Kenseth (2000) and former Interstate Batteries and JGR driver Bobby Labonte (1995).
Having tested at Charlotte earlier this month and earning a solid 13th-place result in last Saturday’s Nextel Open non-points event, the No. 18 team believes it is now armed with the valuable setup information needed to be successful in this weekend’s race.
It will be Yeley’s second start in the marathon event, so he also has that experience to bolster his chances.
It’s been said that the Coca-Cola 600 is one of the toughest races of the year. Driver fatigue and engine attrition are the norm. So Yeley & Co. know that the key to winning is to stay patient, remain focused and be there when the checkered flag flies.
With experience and confidence in hand, Yeley is hoping that to add his name to the list of first-time Nextel Cup winners in the Coca-Cola 600. How does he know it’s possible? It’s been done before.
Several drivers have won their first career Nextel Cup race in the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte. Why do you think that is?
“There are just so many things that can happen since it’s an extra-long race. The guys who generally win this race are guys who are very patient and smart race cars drivers. You need to make sure that you are there at the end, which is the most critical part. This race is longer than any other race we run and you’ve got to be there when it counts. There are some pretty impressive names on that list and those guys over their careers have proven to be smart race car drivers who save their cars to have a shot at the win.”
The Coca-Cola 600 is the longest race of the year. You’ll be making your second start in the event. What is your mindset going into the race?
“My motivation is that this race is the longest race that we run. The race track changes a tremendous amount, so you have to focus on the same things that we focused on last week, which is racing the racetrack. Anything can happen. Generally, there are not a lot of cautions here at Charlotte, so track position is huge. You have to make sure you go out there and run a smart race and not get too rambunctious in the first 100, 200 or even 400 miles because it is just so long. You need to keep yourself focused and keep tuning on the race car.”
The last points-paying race was at Darlington, which is one of the toughest race tracks on the schedule. How does that compare to the Coca-Cola 600, which is the longest race on the schedule?
“There’s definitely a different mindset. At Darlington, the tires fall off so fast. The race track is very narrow and pretty much one groove. When you come here to Charlotte, you can change grooves and race on the outside groove. You do a lot of things to try to keep your momentum. It’s a tough racetrack because you are going so fast. The tires throw an extra monkey wrench into the equation because they are so hard that the cars don’t have as much grip. Finding the right balance is generally pretty tough to do. It’s very critical that you keep your car driving on long runs.”
You gained two positions in the point standings after Darlington. You’re now in 20th and you are only 128 points out of the Chase for the Nextel Cup cutoff (12th-place). What do you need to do over the next several weeks to secure your spot in the Chase?
“It’s definitely in reach. We just need to make sure we don’t get in too big of a hurry to get in the top-12. Texas definitely hurt us – getting wrecked on the first lap. There’s always a lot of ‘shoulda-woulda-couldas,’ but if we could have even finished 20th in that race (Texas), we would have been in 13th-place (in the standings) and not as far out (of the Chase). We aren’t going to go into any kind of panic mode. We just need to continue to go out and run consistently. We need to go out and run in the top-10 more consistently over the next stretch. But top-15 each week will get the job done and get us back up there in points. We need to take each race one at a time and treat it as the most important race until it’s over. Then we’ll go to the next one.”
What did you learn in the Nextel Open last weekend that you can take with you into this weekend’s race?
“It’s just one of those deals where you outthink yourself during the Nextel Open. We tested here for two days. When the sun goes down, the race track gets a lot of grip. We have a really good race car when we come back for the Coke 600. We fought being so loose with the car we had here for the Nextel Open that we just didn’t know if it had something to do with the car or the racetrack. After qualifying, the cars were impounded. The guys had to leave the car really tight. When the sun was out the first 10 laps or so, the car was really fast. It’s a shame that there were so many caution laps because we definitely would have been able to get to the front. The clean air would have helped us out. As soon as the sun set in the last 20-lap segment, the car just got extremely tight. I just couldn’t keep the car on the bottom. I couldn’t even run it up top because it was still pushing. I felt like we were going to use the Open as a springboard for the Coke 600. It’s just one of those things where we go have to go back and think about what we did and apply what we learned when it counts on Sunday.”
The Coca-Cola 600, like several other races, starts during the daytime but finishes at night. As a driver, what kind of mindset do you have for these types of races?
“You just need to have a lot of adjustability in the car. When you start during the day, the race track is going to be very slippery and it’s just not going to have a lot of grip. So you have to set up your car pretty tight. As the nighttime comes, there’s a lot of rubber put down on the track and you go through a lot of heat cycles. A lot of guys probably do ‘gas-and-gos’ or they change two tires, so you have to be able to free the race car back up. If you are making really long runs and you start getting tight – especially on the exit of the corner – and you can’t get any momentum on throttle, it will cost you huge here.”
What is it going to take to run consistently in the top-10 each week?
“It takes breaks here and there, but I don’t want to rely on that. We need to go out there and create our own opportunities. To look back at the season right now, qualifying has probably hurt us the most. Any one of the races we’ve run so far, we’ve been capable of running in top-10 or top-five speeds. But we are 15th or 18th on the race track and it’s just really difficult to make it up. We have to make sure that we start qualifying better. If you start up front, it’s easier to stay up there. Even if we have a really good race car, it’s difficult to come from 20th or 25th on a racetrack where track position is critical and make up that time.”
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Yeley Nets Career Best Second-Place Finish at Charlotte
Interstate Batteries Team Stretches Fuel after Running in Top-10 All Night
True Speed Communication For Joe Gibbs Racing, Press Release
Date: May 27, 2007
Event: Coca-Cola 600 (Round 12 of 36)
Series: NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series
Location: Charlotte Motor Speedway (1.5-mile oval)
Start/Finish: 12th/2nd (Running, completed 400 of 400 laps)
Winner: Casey Mears of Hendrick Motorsports (Chevrolet)
With the escalating cost of gas across the country on this Memorial Day weekend, J.J. Yeley was able to save just enough to cash in on his best career NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series finish in Sunday night’s Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte (N.C.) Motor Speedway.
Yeley, driver of the No. 18 Interstate Batteries Chevrolet for Joe Gibbs Racing (JGR), pulled off the second-place finish by saving fuel over the final 59 laps and staying out of several accidents while running consistently in the top-10 throughout the 400-lap race.
Yeley now sits 15th in the championship point standings, gaining five spots to sit just 59 points behind 12th-place Jamie McMurray Jamie McMurray – the cutoff mark to make the final, 10-race Chase for the Nextel Cup.
“I’m just thrilled,” said Yeley. “It was an awesome day. If we would have gotten anything worse than an eighth-place finish today I would have really been upset. The Interstate Batteries guys worked their tails off. This car was really good in the test and this is exactly what this team needed.”
After starting in the 12th position, Yeley looked strong from the beginning of the 600-mile race – the longest on the Nextel Cup circuit. By the fifth lap, he had moved all the way up to the fifth position.
Yeley was able to keep his Interstate Batteries machine out of trouble and in the top-10 throughout the night as crew chief Steve Addington and the rest of the team notched several strong pit stops while making adjustments each time.
“We got up to fifth and got real tight and fell back to about 10th,” said Yeley of the start of the race. “The guys really kept digging. Steve (Addington) made some great calls. The car was so close that even the smallest changes made a huge difference. We went back and forth between being too free and too tight. We hit it there near the end and thank goodness they got all the fuel in it that we needed.”
While the Interstate Batteries team made small adjustments all night, they also utilized smart pit strategy, as they sometimes took fuel only over tires. The final pit stop on lap 337 was a case in point, because with a little more than 60 laps to go, it was critical that gas man Tom Lampe and catch can man Jason Hinson helped pack the car’s fuel cell to capacity. With about 15 laps to go, Addington began telling Yeley to try to stretch his fuel mileage as much as possible.
“We were definitely worried about running out of fuel,” said Yeley. “I tried to let the thing coast as long as I could to conserve and then use the brakes.”
Yeley’s JGR teammates – Tony Stewart and Denny Hamlin – finished sixth and ninth, respectively. Hamlin remains the lead JGR driver in the championship point race, as his ninth-place finish kept him fourth in the standings. Stewart and Yeley occupy the sixth and 15th positions, respectively. Stewart maintained his position in the standings while Yeley gained five spots by virtue of his best career Nextel Cup finish.
Casey Mears won the Coca-Cola 600 to score his first career Nextel Cup victory in 156 races. Yeley finished 9.561 seconds behind Mears, while Kyle Petty, Reed Sorenson and Brian Vickers rounded out the top-five. Stewart, Ricky Rudd, Dale Earnhardt Jr., Hamlin and Jimmie Johnson comprised the remainder of the top-10.
The next event on the Nextel Cup schedule is the June 3 Autism Speaks 400 presented by Visa at Dover (Del.) International Speedway The race begins at 1:30 p.m. EDT with live, high-definition coverage provided by FOX.
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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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True Speed Communication For Joe Gibbs Racing, Press Release
HUNTERSVILLE, N.C., (May 29, 2007) – One of the most disappointing races among J.J. Yeley’s 54 NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series starts might just be the turning point he needed toward making the 2007 Chase for the Nextel Cup.
Yeley, driver of the No. 18 Interstate Batteries Chevrolet for Joe Gibbs Racing (JGR), visited Texas Motor Speedway in April with high hopes that were quickly dashed after being taken out in an accident on the first lap, resulting in a 43rd-place finish.
Since that ill-fated weekend in Texas, Yeley hasn’t finished worse than 21st and has moved up from 22nd to 15th in the Nextel Cup point standings after notching a career-best second-place finish in Sunday’s Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte (N.C.) Motor Speedway.
Not only does Yeley currently sit 15th in the standings, he is only 59 markers behind 12th-place Jamie McMurray in the final spot in the 2007 Chase for the Nextel Cup.
Even more encouraging for Yeley than the runner-up finish in the Coca-Cola 600 is that he ran in the top-15 for all but two of the 400 laps run during NASCAR’s longest event, more than any other driver. Yeley also spent 349 of the 400 laps running in the top-10.
Yeley, crew chief Steve Addington and the rest of the Interstate Batteries team have started to gel during a critical stretch leading into the next Car of Tomorrow (COT) race Sunday at the one-mile Dover (Del.) International Speedway.
It will be the sixth COT race of the season and JGR drivers have led 973 of 2,083 laps in those five races. But they have yet to notch their first win of 2007.
On a Dover weekend that will include his 100th career NASCAR Busch Series start, Yeley knows momentum over the last four races is on his side, and he hopes it’s enough to help him be the one to secure JGR’s first win of the season.
Many might look at Casey Mears’ win and your second-place finish Sunday at Charlotte as done with the aid of fuel mileage. But you ran in the top-10 for 349 of the 400 laps. Was running in the top-10 the whole night, coupled with patience, really the key to your strong run there?
“I think it would’ve been different if we had been a 20th-place car and won or ran second. I hope that Casey Mears gets the credit he deserves since he ran up front all night. We ran in the top-10 pretty much all race long. I know Casey was really fast and was up front a long time. Hopefully everyone realizes that the cars that ran up front were there all day long. It was really a weird race because the guys running up front were getting in accidents so early in the longest race we run during the year.”
How important is it to run consistently in all the races and be there at the end? Does it seem like good things end up happening?
“Denny (Hamlin, JGR teammate) should have won Darlington because he had the fastest race car, but unfortunately he didn’t. That’s another reason why this sport is as crazy and as tough as it is. You have so many cars that are fast and competitive. This season, it hasn’t always shown in the win column because the Hendrick cars have won the majority of the races, but that’s only because they have put themselves in the right position with 50 or 100 laps to go without making those mistakes that can cost you. That is what the Interstate Batteries team hasn’t done until recently this year. We haven’t put ourselves in the right position in the last third of the race. Even though we’ve run up front in the first two-thirds of the race, we seem to be just a bit off and that has hurt us. Hopefully last weekend was a sign that we have some things turned around. We are trying as hard as we can and we’re getting closer and closer to where we have the right chemistry and we’re running in the top-10 every week and starting to contend for wins.”
How much does track position play a role in having good finishes?
“We just haven’t had the track position to be there up front toward the end. I think qualifying is the biggest key. We haven’t qualified that well this year, but at Charlotte we qualified well and we ran up front. Being in that clean air, it’s easier to tune on your car versus being stuck back in 25th because once you move up toward the front, the car handles so much differently.”
Going into Darlington (S.C.), the talk was that it was going to be the toughest test for the COT. Can you compare Darlington to Dover, and will Dover now be the toughest test for the COT?
“I don’t think you can compare Darlington to Dover. I don’t think there is going to be any doubt that Dover is going to be the biggest test for the COT. It’s the fastest race track that we will be on with the COT this year. You have a lot of grip and a lot of banking and you have a lot of transitions. I think the transition will be the toughest part with the COT cars because they don’t travel as much. Going into turn one, you are going 180-plus mp and the race track basically drops from underneath you, and you land going into turn one and get set going in the other direction. It’s always been a challenge, but they take away half the travel and you wonder how that is going to affect the cars going into turn one.”
The Nextel Cup circuit is a constant pressure cooker, but in the end, how much do you enjoy being behind the wheel and not having to think about the responsibilities as a driver in NASCAR’s top series?
“I’m a race car driver. I’m here to win races. Obviously the money is nice, but honestly it’s just a bonus to me. It doesn’t matter if it’s a Nextel Cup car, a Busch car or a Sprint car or a Midget. If I have time, I’m going to go race every opportunity I get. I flew to Indianapolis last week and drove a Sprint Car race at Mount Vernon and it probably cost me twice what it paid to win the race, but I had a blast and I love doing it. I’ll continue to race no matter what. There’s not more pressure than I already put on myself. I’ve won races and I’ve won championships and I want to do the same thing at this level. We’ve got all the equipment to do it. It’s just a matter of finding all the pieces to get it done. I think last weekend proved that we are capable of running up front. We do it every week, but we seem to falter at some point or another. We didn’t do that at Charlotte and we got the finish we needed. It was a big boost for the team and we are going to go on to Dover and do the same thing.”
You improved to 15th in the point standings, just 59 points out of 12th-place and the Chase for the Nextel Cup. Finishing second was great, but how big was the runner-up finish last week, looking at the big picture?
“To look at all the races this year, we’ve lost some positions late. That’s nobody’s fault but our own as a team. I wish we could just get that Texas race back, where we got wrecked on the first lap. But at the same time everyone is going to have one of those races during the season. You can’t worry about it and I hope we don’t have any more. We are only 59 points out of 12th-place and we want to be higher than 12th. The goal is that when the Chase starts in September that we want to go race for a championship.”
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This thread is for the news articles and press releases about J.J. Yeley during the 2007 season.
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True Speed Communication For Joe Gibbs Racing, Press Release
HUNTERSVILLE, N.C., (June 5, 2007) – For J.J. Yeley, it might be not be a coincidence that the NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series is headed to the Pocono Mountains and Pocono (Pa.) Raceway this weekend for the first of two stops this summer at the 2.5-mile triangle-shaped track.
Yeley, driver of the No. 18 Interstate Batteries Chevrolet for Joe Gibbs Racing (JGR), has seen plenty of peaks and valleys during his sophomore season in NASCAR’s top series.
After scoring a career-best, second-place finish in the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte two weeks ago, Yeley worked his way up to 16th place with a strong race car last weekend at Dover (Del.) International Speedway before a right-front shock mount broke off more than 100 laps into the 400-lap race.
The issue sent Yeley behind the wall for almost 30 laps to weld the shock mount back on before he could return to action. While he gained several spots because of attrition, he had to settle for a 37th-place finish.
Before the Dover outing, Yeley had finished no worse than 21st in the previous five points-paying races and the team has fielded competitive cars week-in and week-out. Despite the tough finish at Dover, many others near him in the point standings also stumbled and Yeley still sits a very manageable 122 points out of 12th place and the final spot in the 2007
Chase for the NEXTEL Cup.
At Pocono, the Interstate Batteries team will be bringing back its workhorse Chassis No. 138, a car that brought Yeley a 13th-place finish at California Speedway earlier in the season, along with the career-best finish at Charlotte last month.
Yeley is hoping that his workhorse, along with the confidence of several strong runs in recent weeks, help him climb back up the mountain of the NEXTEL Cup standings toward the team’s goal of making the 2007 edition of the Chase for the NEXTEL Cup.
Yeley has made it a habit of climbing over obstacles all season, and he’s not about to stop now.
You’ve had a pretty big roller-coaster couple of weeks with the high of finishing second in Charlotte, then having the bar that holds up the shock break at Dover. How do you deal with those highs and lows and still keep focused on your main goal for the season, which is making the Chase?
“Dover was a really weird race. A lot of guys struggled and a lot of guys ended up a lap down. With Martin Truex having such a dominant performance, I guess it was easy for him to go out there on really long runs and green-flag pit stops to get a lot of really good cars a lap down. Those guys who were right in front of us in points didn’t have particularly great days, which helped us a little bit. Obviously we’ve had a couple of races that I wish we could have back. We can’t change the past and all we can do is look toward the future. We had the most competitive car we’ve had in my past races at Dover. I really don’t see any reason why we can’t still stay consistent, log top-10 and top-15 finishes, and eventually pick those points back up and work our way back to 12th place in points.”
You had two solid races last year at Pocono with top-15 finishes in both races. Does that give you confidence heading back there twice in the next couple of months?
“I’m very optimistic for Pocono. Last year we finished 14th and 11th. I think I have a better way to approach the race track now. It’s so funny how half a season can change your thought process just from things that I learned at the Charlotte test and the Coca-Cola 600 that I can apply to other race tracks. I think we are going to make some huge gains when we get back to Pocono this weekend. As long as the changes with some of the things I’m doing will help the car should be even better and we should be in great shape to contend for a win this weekend.”
Pocono is one of the most unique tracks the NEXTEL Cup Series visits. What’s the most difficult part as a driver to figure out in order to run well there?
“You have three distinct and different corners. That race track was based off of three different tracks when they built it years ago. My problem there in the past was overdriving the entry to the corner since the straightaways are so long. I tried to carry too much speed into the corners. Getting to the throttle early is going to be important to getting through the corners well because the corners are just not that long. It’s easier to say than to do sometimes, but I’ve really worked hard this season on not overdriving entry because that’s always been my biggest problem. Also at Pocono, it’s obviously a very long race and you really need to take care of your equipment. Brakes are also a big issue. It’s easy to run out of brakes if you are running the car really hard because you are going so fast, especially down the front straightaway. With all the things we’ve learned car-wise, we are going to bring back the car we ran at Charlotte. We also have learned some things body-wise and that’s been a huge improvement over last year, and last year we were very competitive at Pocono.”
Last year, your teammate Denny Hamlin dominated both races at Pocono. It’s easy for people to want to look at yourself and Tony Stewart and think that same setup will work for your cars. How much did you learn from the setups on Denny’s car, and do you have to tweak that setup to fit your driving style?
“We tried some stuff that they tried on the 11 (Hamlin) car last year but at the same time it’s a different race car and a different driver. The aerodynamics of the car are so huge, now. Our downforce numbers were just about the same as his, though. It’s just a perfect setup that works for Denny with that particular car since they brought the same car back for the second race. Obviously, it was a dominant performance and better than anyone else had or could find with different changes. What we know is that there is a setup that works well. Joe Gibbs Racing won both races there and with a little more knowledge we hope we can go back and accomplish the same thing that Denny did last year.”
You mentioned about bringing back the same car you ran at Charlotte (chassis No. 138) and it was also the same car that you ran well in at California earlier this year. Did you end up finding the right car and make it your workhorse for the rest of the downforce races this season?
“It think so. I really don’t get too involved in making the decision to bring a particular car to the race track. But you find some race cars just work better than others. It’s just the old superstition that one car is better than another. After Denny won Pocono last year, they worked really hard to turn that car around and run it back-to-back weeks a couple of different times. This particular car has been fast every time it’s been on the race track for us. It was a great run we had in Charlotte a couple of weeks ago and we should have had at least a top-10 with that car in California. It’s going to become the car we are going to be running a lot more the rest of the year, especially on the intermediate and downforce tracks.”
As a life long racer, what has Bill France Jr.’s vision meant for the sport of NASCAR and, particularly, opportunities for drivers like yourself to compete in what is now one of the largest sports in the country?
“Unfortunately, I never got the opportunity to meet Bill France Jr., since I came into NASCAR at a time where his visits to the race track were pretty infrequent. Just because I didn’t get to meet him doesn’t mean that I don’t have a tremendous respect for what he’s done for the sport. He’s been a guy who has taken what was a small Southeastern sport and turned it into something that has become one of the largest sports out there. He was obviously such a visionary because he was able to take the sport and be able to look years down the road and guide it to where it is today. A lot of drivers, including myself, benefit today from his vision. I think everyone in the sport is going to miss him.”
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