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Date: Oct. 21, 2007
Event: Subway 500 (Round 32 of 36)
Series: NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series
Location: Martinsville (Va.) Speedway (.526-mile oval)
Start/Finish: 8th/42nd (Engine, completed 258 of 506 laps in a green/white/checkered finish)
Winner: Jimmie Johnson of Hendrick Motorsports (Chevrolet)
J.J. Yeley, driver of the No. 18 Interstate Batteries Chevrolet Impala SS for Joe Gibbs Racing (JGR), saw an early end to his bid for a top-10 finish in Sunday’s Subway 500 NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series race at Martinsville (Va.) Speedway when a terminal engine problem shortly after a lap-258 restart sent him to the garage for the day.
Yeley started eighth, ran in the top-12 for the first 98 laps of the 500-lap race, but then began suffering the effects of a tight race car as he got on the throttle exiting the tight corners at each end of the paper-clip shaped, .526-mile Martinsville oval. Yeley fell back to as far as 29th as crew chief Steve Addington and the Interstate Batteries team made significant changes on successive pit stops under caution on laps 116 (right-rear spring rubber added) and 168 (right-rear track bar adjustment). After a four-tire change on lap 214, Yeley felt his Interstate Batteries Chevrolet was the best it had been all day. He stayed out during a lap-247 caution period and found himself in 10th place on the lap-255 restart. But shortly after crossing the start-finish line as the race went back to green, heavy smoke poured from the back of the No. 18 car. Yeley coasted into the garage, and after a quick inspection, the team called it a day.
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“Just as I was getting into turn one, I was starting to feel a small vibration.” Yeley said. “I thought for a second I was having a brake problem. But I looked in the rear-view mirror and I could see smoke coming out the back of the car. Most likely, it’s a broken piston, or something along those lines. I don’t think it’s got a big hole in it. Nonetheless, the Interstate Batteries car was pretty decent. It was one of those days when we were just starting to get excited, and we got the car where it was starting to drive well again. It got really tight in the center for a while. And it was definitely dicey racing in the middle of the field when we were back there. I wouldn’t call that much fun. At any rate, right when things were looking good again, we had one of those problems that have been so very rare at Joe Gibbs Racing. We’ll just pack up our stuff and move on to the next one.”
The 42nd-place finish dropped Yeley three positions to 21st in the Nextel Cup point standings.
Yeley’s JGR teammates – Denny Hamlin and Tony Stewart – finished sixth and 13th, respectively, in the Subway 500. Stewart and Hamlin are JGR’s representatives in this year’s 12-driver Chase for the Nextel Cup. Stewart’s 13th-place finish maintained his fourth-place standing in points. The two-time Nextel Cup champion is now 244 points behind series leader Jeff Gordon. Hamlin, meanwhile, improved one position to eighth in points, 369 markers arrears Gordon.
Jimmie Johnson won the Subway 500 to score his 30th career Nextel Cup victory, his seventh this season and his fourth at Martinsville. Ryan Newman, future JGR driver Kyle Busch, Gordon and Matt Kenseth rounded out the top-five. Hamlin, Greg Biffle, Juan Pablo Montoya, Clint Bowyer and Kevin Harvick comprised the remainder of the top-10.
There were a 21 caution periods for 127 laps, both Martinsville event records, with six drivers failing to finish the race, extended to 506 laps by a green-white-checkered finish.
The next event on the Nextel Cup schedule – the seventh race of the 10-race Chase for the Nextel Cup – is the Oct. 28 Pep Boys Auto 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway. The race begins at 2 p.m. EDT with live, high-definition coverage provided by ABC beginning with its pre-race show at 1 p.m.