Yeley, No. 18 team battle throughout Dickies 500, come away from Texas with 20th-place finish

FORT WORTH, Texas (Nov. 5, 2006) – J.J. Yeley’s race-long fight for a top-20 finish in the Dickies 500 eventually paid off Sunday evening, with the Interstate Batteries Racing team placing 20th at Texas Motor Speedway.

Yeley’s persistence also paid dividends in the series standings as the Raybestos® Rookie advanced one position with two races remaining on the 2006 schedule.

A dramatic series of events late in the race played heavily into Yeley’s fortunes. With laps winding down, no one had enough fuel to go the distance so all drivers were scheduled to make one final pit stop for at least a splash of gas. As the front-runners dove onto pit road, Yeley’s No. 18 Chevrolet cycled into the lead for three laps. When Yeley finally took his turn on pit road after running the maximum number of laps he could, the lead went back to Tony Stewart, who dominated the race by leading 278 of 339 laps and would go on to claim his second consecutive series victory.

With Yeley returning to the track and just getting back up to speed for the stretch run, Greg Biffle’s accident in turn 1 brought out the 11th caution of the race – pinning Yeley one lap down less than 11 miles from the end of the race. He remained a lap down to Stewart at the finish, with the 20th-place showing representing a gain of six spots over where he started.

Despite the team’s numerous adjustments to the chassis throughout the race, it never was able to find a good balance on the No. 18 Monte Carlo. Still, after wrestling with his racecar’s tight-handling condition for hours, Yeley found himself in position for an even stronger finish than he got until Biffle’s untimely caution ended those hopes.

It was the eighth race this year in which Yeley has led laps and also marked an improvement of 15 positions over where he finished in this year’s first Texas race back in April.

After Stewart, the rest of Sunday’s top 10 consisted of Jimmie Johnson, who finished second; Kevin Harvick, third; Kyle Busch, fourth; rookie Clint Bowyer, fifth; Dale Earnhardt Jr., sixth; Casey Mears, seventh; Kurt Busch, eighth; Jeff Gordon, ninth; and Denny Hamlin, driver of the third Joe Gibbs Racing entry, 10th. Pole-sitter Brian Vickers finished 27th.

Two-time NASCAR Cup Series champion Terry Labonte made the 848th and final start of his career Sunday, finishing 36th in his No. 44 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet.

Johnson took over the series points lead with 6,157 points, 17 ahead of second-place Matt Kenseth (who placed 12th Sunday). Earnhardt, Hamlin and Harvick complete the top five. Yeley is 28th with 3,039 points, 41 behind 27th-place Dave Blaney and 65 behind 26th-place Jeff Green.

The next race on the schedule will be the Nov. 12 Checker Auto Parts 500k at Phoenix International Raceway. Qualifying will be held Friday, Nov. 10.