Enjoying his best overall performance of the 2007 NASCAR Busch Series season to date, J.J. Yeley raced in the top five for most of the running of the Meijer 300 Saturday night at the Kentucky Speedway but faded late to finish 12th.

It was the third time this season that Yeley has finished 12th in a race while his qualifying effort was his best since a seventh best qualifying effort at Darlington last month.

After earning his first career NASCAR Nextel Cup Series pole during qualifying at the Michigan International Speedway on Friday, Yeley headed to Kentucky to drive the #1 Miccosukee Gaming & Resort/Northeastern Supply Chevrolet in Saturday’s Busch Series race with six other Nextel Cup drivers.

J.J. qualified third earlier in the afternoon with little practice and followed that up with a great effort during the race, running as high as second twice and seldom showing outside of the top five.

During a restart of the race following a caution period on lap 20, Yeley actually grabbed the lead for a brief moment over Carl Edwards but was unable to hold off the current Series’ point leader who got a great run on the outside in turn three and edged past Yeley before the lap could be completed. It was the closest Yeley came to leading a lap thus far this season.

Racing with the night’s top cars of eventual race winner Stephen Leicht, second place finisher Brad Coleman, Scott Wimmer and Mike Bliss, Yeley unfortunately could not maintain his great run over the race’s final laps and faded outside of the top 10 when the checkered flag finally fell.

“I just ran out of grip and wasn’t able to hold on over those final laps,” said Yeley, who did improve two spots in overall driver points to 13th for his highest position in the driver point standing this season.

Leicht, driving for Robert Yates Racing, earned his first Busch Series victory with a late-race pass of then leader Coleman. Wimmer, David Stremme and Shane Huffman rounded out the top five finishers. Edwards failed to finish a Busch race for the first time this season when his Ford was hit in the rear by the machine driven by Stephen Wallace just after a re-start on lap 179. Edwards was credited with a 33rd place finish but still holds a commanding 701-point advantage over second place Dave Blaney.

Yeley will seek that elusive first victory this Saturday night when the Busch Series teams head to Wisconsin for an outing at the famed Milwaukee Mile oval at the Wisconsin State Fairgrounds. ESPN2 will televise the AT&T 250 live beginning at 8 p.m. EDT.