Pit Road Miscue Costs Yeley and Vigoro / Home Depot Team

Race Review

Dover, DE (September 24, 2005) - At the midway point of Saturday's 200-lap Busch Series race at Dover, Vigoro / Home Depot driver J.J. Yeley was solidly in fifth place and he enjoyed a six-second lead over the sixth-place car of Brian Vickers. As the laps clicked away, the leaders came to pit road for a routine green-flag pit stop, and Yeley pitted with leader Ryan Newman on Lap 95. When the jack dropped at the conclusion of the stop, Yeley hit the gas and sped away.

Unfortunately, there were only a couple of lugnuts on his left-rear wheel. Crew chief Jason Ratcliff explained to his disappointed driver that they would have to pit again under green to secure the remaining lugnuts on the wheel. Once Yeley left the pits for the second time, he was nearly down two laps to Newman. "Obviously we're disappointed because that miscue was something that was in our control," said Yeley. "Our guys work very hard on their pit stops all week, and it was just a mistake. We're in this together as a team, and we'll bounce back from it."

Yeley qualified fourth at Dover on Friday and raced in the top five for the first 95 laps of the race. Towards the end of that green-flag run, Yeley was closing the gap on the leader while running the fastest laps of anyone. After the pit road incident, Yeley was back on the track in the 18th position.

A timely caution on Lap 120 allowed Yeley to stay just one lap down to the leaders, and it gave him the opportunity to race the other lapped cars for the free pass. Once the race restarted on Lap 126, Yeley reported that he had a severe vibration in the right-front tire. Because the problem worsened, Yeley was forced to make his second unscheduled green-flag pit stop of the day. When the team changed right-side tires, they noticed that the right-front wheel was cracked. After Yeley went back on the track, he was down three laps to Newman and unable to make up the ground lost.

Yeley finished the race in 20th place, three laps down to the leader. "We had an awesome car today," said Yeley. "I'm not sure if we had anything for Ryan Newman, but it would've been fun to race him for the win. We just never gave ourselves the chance."

Yeley's next Busch Series race is on Saturday, October 8th at Kansas Speedway. Yeley and his Vigoro / Home Depot teammates will test at Kansas this week in preparation for the 300-mile race. The team will go to Kansas with Yeley in 13th in the overall driver standings, just 138 points outside the top 10.