Broken Shock Puts Damper on Yeleys Dover Run

Hoping to run well in front of several hundred Northeastern Supply customers, employees and executives, a broken right front shock absorber ended up damping J.J. Yeley's run Saturday afternoon in the Dover 200 NASCAR Busch Series race at the Dover International Speedway in Dover, DE.

Yeley's Miccosukee Resort & Gaming/Northeastern Supply Chevrolet was running in the 25th position when eventual race winner Carl Edwards put Yeley's #1 machine a lap down on the 79th of the race's scheduled 200 circuits.

A caution flag flew just nine laps later when the car driven by rookie driver Robert Richardson spun and made contact with the turn 2 wall, permitting all of the cars left in the race and the 43-car starting field to make pit stops for tires and fuel.

Yeley made his stop on lap 88 with the other machines a lap or more down and actually had improved two positions to 23rd exiting the pits and in a position to possibly get his lap back should the #1 be the first car a lap down when the next caution flag flew. Unfortunately, that would not happen when Yeley's car suddenly lost front traction and had to pit just a lap after the event was re-started to investigate the problem.

The right front shock absorber had failed and Yeley had to return to the garage area to have it replaced after losing eight more laps as the team diagnosed the problem. It took another 14 laps for the repair to be made with Yeley finally getting back into action on lap 104.

Yeley continued the race without another problem, and thanks to several accidents that put several cars behind the wall early, J.J. was able to still come away with a 25th place finish.

"We really wanted to have a good run for the Northeastern folks, but that broken shock just killed us," Yeley said after the race. "Our car improved dramatically after we replaced the part, so the early handling problems we were having that put us a lap down early in the race may very well have been the result of the shock problem. At least we did get to run the last 95 laps without any additional problems, so we'll work extra hard to give Northeastern's customers something to cheer about when we come back here (to Dover) in the fall," Yeley added.

Edwards, who is running away with the Series championship this year with now a 472-point advantage over last year's champ Kevin Harvick, won easily in a race that was red flagged twice after accidents and had only 24 cars running at the end. Denny Hamlin, Scott Wimmer, Casey Mears and Matt Kenseth rounded out the top five finishers.

Yeley greeted a host of Northeastern Supply Company officials and guests at two separate functions at the track, visiting Friday evening along with his race team to have dinner and sign autographs. He returned to visit with a couple hundred more customers on Saturday afternoon after he had qualified his Chevrolet in the same 25th position.

"I really enjoyed meeting the executives from Northeastern Supply and their customers," Yeley said. "They are all a lot of fun and I can see why the company's customers are so supportive of the company and their products. They are down to earth and seemingly do everything for the benefit of the customer. I'm proud to be driving for such good people. I only wish we could have given them a better performance," he added.