YELEY CLAWS HIS WAY TO 11TH PLACE PHOENIX RACE FINISH

J.J. Yeley had to overcome a penalty from NASCAR and a series of late-race accidents to claw his way back to a hard-earned, 11th place finish in Saturday afternoon’s Arizona.Travel 200 Busch Series race at the Phoenix International Raceway.

On lap 137 of the 200-lap event on PIR’s funky shaped 1-mile oval, Yeley was behind the Ford of Jamie McMurray and in 11th place during a re-start when Yeley’s #1 Miccosukee Resort & Gaming/Northeastern Supply Company Chevrolet darted sharply to the left and inside McMurray’s car in an effort to pick up a position.

Yeley’s car just clipped McMurray’s in the left rear bumper, spinning McMurray’s car around a initiating a multi-car pileup that ended up involving five cars and eliminating three of them. Yeley made it through the mess without any damage, but NASCAR observed that Yeley made his move before reaching the start-finish line which on a re-start is a no no.

When the race was re-started from this caution period and after a brief red flag situation, Yeley was ordered to re-start from the end of the longest line of cars which at the time was 24th and seemingly out of contention.

Yeley, racing before his home town fans and family, refused to wilt, however, and waged a determined charge over the race’s final 57 laps.

In just eight laps from that point, Yeley bulled his #1 machine into 17th position. Six laps later he was 16th and with just 25 laps remaining in the race was up to 15th.

Yeley would find himself as far back as the 21st position with 19 laps remaining when another caution flag waved, and literally driving the wheels off his race car, Yeley had his fans standing and cheering by moving past six cars and back into 15th place with just nine laps to go.

Following the race’s second red flag stoppage that came with just three laps left following yet another multi-car incident down the front stretch, Yeley was 12th. Continuing his aggressive driving style as the final laps wound down, Yeley passed the Toyota of David Reutimann for 11th place on the next-to-last lap and held it through the green-white-checkers finishing format mandated by NASCAR when races draw a yellow flag with three or less laps remaining.

“I never gave up out there today,” Yeley said after the race. “We had a good car, and I always went forward out there and was able to pass a bunch of cars. That penalty did hurt us because we lost significant track position, but at least we were able to rally and did finish the race on the lead lap,” he added.

Yeley qualified earlier on Saturday and posted the 18th best time from where he started the race. He was 13th by lap 7, 11th by lap 20 and 9th by lap 30. It certainly set the tone for some exciting racing action late in the process, overcoming the NASCAR penalty and nearly scoring a top ten effort.

Kyle Busch won the race with a dominating performance, beating Matt Kenseth to the checkers by a couple of car lengths. Clint Bowyer, Scott Wimmer and Kevin Harvick, all in Chevrolets like the winner and Yeley, rounded out the top five finishers. Recently crowned 2007 Busch Series champion Carl Edwards rallied himself to finish seventh.

The final Busch Series race ever will be run next Saturday afternoon at the Homestead-Miami Speedway in Florida and will close the 2007 Busch Series season while ushering in new Series sponsor Nationwide Insurance. The Ford 300 will start at 4 p.m. and will be televised live nationally by ESPN2.