J.J. Yeley and Vigoro / Home Depot Race Team Score Top-10 Finish at Martinsville

Event: Goody’s 250
Date: July 22, 2006
Start: 10th
Finish: 9th

Race Review

Martinsville, VA (July 23, 2006) – For the sixth straight race and the ninth time in the last ten races, J.J. Yeley and his Vigoro / Home Depot race team scored a top-10 finish. Yeley maneuvered around the very tight Martinsville Speedway to finish ninth in the Goody’s 250. “Track position was everything today,” said Yeley. “We had it early on, then after an incident with the 5 (Kyle Busch) and a lapped car, we lost track position. But we were able to rebound and finish ninth. I don’t think we had anything for Kevin (Harvick, race winner) or Clint (Boywer, runner-up), but we had a top-five car for sure.”

Yeley started 10th and moved inside the top six in the early going. While racing with Kyle Busch, the duo attempted to pass a lapped car on the backstretch. The lapped car pinched Yeley and Busch, and Yeley clipped the curb on the apron and got loose, subsequently sliding into Busch’s left-side. The spin knocked both competitors out of the top-10 on Lap 91.

Yeley took the green flag on Lap 95 in 31st place, and soldiered ahead to the top 10 by Lap 198. But his progress stalled as five caution flags for incidents at the back of the pack slowed the racing action, and Yeley was only to manage a ninth-place result. “We definitely had something for the next few cars,” explained Yeley. “Every time I got to someone’s bumper, the caution would come out. We just never had a long green-flag run at the end, and we needed one.”

Yeley’s result was his 15th top-10 finish of the year, third most of all Busch Series drivers and four more than he recorded for all of 2005. Yeley remains fifth in the overall Busch Series standings.

Next week the Busch Series teams will travel to St. Louis for Saturday’s Gateway 200. The event will be televised live on TNT at 8:00 pm EST.