YELEY OVERCOMES EARLY-RACE INCIDENT WITH STEPHEN WALLACE AND CHARGES BACK TO 16TH PLACE FINISH IN FRIDAY’S DARLINGTON TEST

Thanks to his best qualifying effort of the 2007 NASCAR Busch Series season, J.J. Yeley had high hopes for his chances in Friday night’s Diamond Hill Plywood 200 at Darlington Raceway in Darlington, SC. A lap 50 incident with rookie Stephen Wallace nearly destroyed such hopes, but Yeley stormed back in his #1 Miccosukee Gaming & Resort/Northeastern Supply Company Chevrolet to earn a 16th place finish.

Yeley posted the seventh fastest qualifying time earlier in the day on Friday and was cruising near the top 10 when Wallace lost control of his Dodge, crashed into the right side of Yeley’s car that grazed the outside retaining wall in the fourth turn.

Yeley was able to continue with damage to his right front fender and received a huge break just two laps later when the Chevrolet Impala of Brett Sherman spun to bring out the fourth of the race’s 10 yellow flags. It enabled Yeley to bring his damaged machine onto pit road for repairs including fixing the tow-in that was knocked out by the contact with the wall. It ended up sending Yeley back onto the track in the 36th position, however.

Fortunately, the repair work proved successful for Yeley and his Phoenix Racing Team and he steadily moved his #1 Chevy through the field, avoiding a half dozen more incidents in the process.

By lap 70, Yeley was in 31st place and was sitting 27th at the halfway point (lap 67) when the race went back to green flag racing after the sixth caution period when Wallace crashed this time in turn four and forcing the youngest son of former NASCAR Nextel Cup Series great Rusty Wallace to the garage area early and out of the race. Wallace finished 39th.

The race then went green for the next 31 laps with Yeley moving into 22nd place when the cars of Matt Kenseth and Brad Keselowski got together in the third town to bring out the seventh caution of the night. Following his final stop of the night for fuel and tires, Yeley found himself in 20th only to drop as far back as 23rd by lap 126 when his car lost the handling for a time.

Yeley continued to charge on, however, moving up to 21st by lap 129, 18th by lap 136 and 17th with just 11 laps to go when the Chevrolet driven by veteran Bobby Labonte was hit from behind by another car and spun in the second turn – hitting the inside retaining wall on the backstretch for yellow flag #11. Three other cars were involved in the incident; littering the track with debris and forcing NASCAR to bring out the red flag to halt the race and to allow the fans to see the race finish under green.

The was restarted with just six laps left and Yeley proceeded to pick off the cars of Scott Riggs and Mike Bliss to earn the 16th place finish.

“We had a great car tonight, and even though we didn’t get the kind of finish we were expecting, we have to be proud of the way we fought back. This 16th place finish helped ease the sinking feeling I had when the 66 car (the one driven by Wallace) slid across my nose and squeezed me into the wall,” Yeley explained.

“But we recovered nicely from it and continue to improve from week to week, and tonight’s effort showed just how far we have come,” added Yeley, who has now posted five top 20 finishes in his last six races topped by 12th place performances at both Nashville and last week in Richmond, VA. “We could have quit when that incident with Wallace happened, but we didn’t, and that is important in our growth as a team,” Yeley said.

Virginia native Denny Hamlin took the lead from Regan Smith with 45 laps to go and went on to an easy victory, his first of the 2007 season, over a fast-closing Marl Martin and point leader Carl Edwards. Jeff Burton and Clint Bowyer, the winner in two of the three races, rounded out the top five finishers.

The Busch Series teams will be testing at the Lowe’s Motor Speedway on Monday and Tuesday this coming week in preparation for their next race on Saturday, May 26 at LMS, the Carquest Auto Parts 300. That race will get the green flag at 8 p.m. with ESPN2 to televise the race live, nationally.