YELEY IGNITES SPECTACULAR 4-CAR WRECK AT CALIFORNIA SPEEDWAY; DROPS OUT AFTER JUST 69 LAPS TO FINISH A DISAPPOINTING 34TH SATURDAY

Running for position on lap 66 of Saturday’s Camping World 300 NASCAR Busch Series race at the California Speedway, J.J. Yeley’s #1 Miccosukee Gaming & Resort/Northeastern Supply Company Chevrolet saw its solid run come to a scary end.

Yeley’s Chevrolet just clipped the right rear quarter panel of the Dodge driven by A.J. Allmendinger as the two battled for the 15th position along with the Chevrolet piloted by Brad Keselowski. Unfortunately, the Yeley and Allmendinger cars began spinning in the first turn with Allmendinger’s darting down towards the apron of the track where it struck the right rear quarter panel of Keselowski’s unsuspecting U.S. Navy machine.

Keselowski’s car turned sharply right and drove nearly head-on into the outside retaining wall, lifting off the ground, landing on top of the hood of Allmendinger’s car and then sliding on fire about 200 feet on top of the safer barrier wall that protects drivers from the outside concrete wall.

Keselowski’s car was destroyed with the young driver sustaining an apparent leg injury while the cars of both Yeley (heavy right side damage) and Allmendinger were also bent up too badly to race again. Yeley did get his car repaired enough to turn three more laps late in the race to pick up two positions over the wrecked cars of Keselowski and Allmendinger.

The end result was a very disappointing 34th place finish for Yeley who was on his way up through the field of 43 cars and towards the top 10 when the accident occurred.

“I am really thankful that Brad (Keselowski) is OK, because that was really a violent hit, but I am just as disappointed for my team because we had a car that was only getting better as the race wore on. There’s no telling if we could have cracked the top 10 or not, but we had a good car that unfortunately had its day end too early,” stated Yeley who was really coming on after starting the race back in the 35th position.

It was Yeley’s second straight sub-30th place finish of this season as he had posted a 39th place finish last week at Bristol after breaking a fuel pump late in the race.

Despite his poor finish and starting position, Yeley had his Miccosukee Gaming & Resort/Northeastern Supply Company machine running well prior to the big wreck.

In just 33 laps, Yeley broke into the top 20 for the first time and remained there. He was 18th after making his first pit stop on lap 44 and had charged up to 16th place when he, Allmendinger and Keselowski battled for the 15th spot at the time of the accident.

NASCAR Nextel Cup Series veteran Jeff Burton passed fellow Cup driver Kyle Busch with just eight laps to go to win Saturday night’s race in California. Rounding out the top five finishers were Denny Hamlin, Jimmie Johnson and Clint Bowyer.

Yeley will attempt to get his team out of its recent funk of finishes of 41, 39 and 34 in three of its last four races when the Busch Series moves to the Richmond International Raceway in Virginia for the running of the Richmond 250 on Friday night.

That race is scheduled to start at 8 p.m. and will be televised by ESPN2 nationally.

NASCAR Nextel Cup Series veteran Jeff Burton passed fellow Cup driver Kyle Busch with just eight laps to go to win Saturday night’s race in California.