J.J. Yeley Opens Up Heading To Viva Las Vegas; Talks Facebook, IndyCars And More |
|---|
Topics: J.J. Yeley
|
Chris Knight
Knight Motorsports Management
March 3, 2011
J.J. Yeley, No. 46 Darlington Raceway / Espar Heating Chevrolet Impala Kobalt Tools 400 Fast Facts
NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Race No. 3 Kobalt Tools 400 Las Vegas (Nev.) Motor Speedway, Las Vegas, Nevada
Race Information: Event: Kobalt Tools 400, Sunday, March 6 at 12:00 p.m. Local. Track: Las Vegas (Nev.) Motor Speedway Qualifying: Friday, March 4, at 3:40 p.m. Local Time Track Length: 1.5-mile paved oval.
Last Time Out; Phoenix International Raceway: J.J. Yeley and the Whitney Motorsports team had high hopes for the SUBWAY Fit Fresh 500k at Phoenix (Ariz). International Raceway, especially since the second race of the season is the hometown track of the former USAC champion. After qualifying his way into the field on Saturday, Yeley showed that he had a competitive car in the early stages of the event. The No. 46 AAMCO Transmissions / Ohsweken Speedway Chevrolet Impala was able to avoid the “big one” early in the race but unfortunately a cracked header would send Yeley and company to the garage where the team would have to settle for a 37th place finish.
Viva Las Vegas: The third of 36 races on the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series (NSCS) tour invades Las Vegas, Nevada for a stop at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Yeley will aim to make his fourth career start at LVMS. In his previous outing, Yeley qualified a track best of 12th in his inaugural debut in 2006 driving for Joe Gibbs Racing. Yeley’s best track finish also occurred in that event where he guided the No. 18 Interstate Batteries Chevrolet Monte Carlo SS to a 17th place finish. Four starts in the NASCAR Nationwide Series at Las Vegas have included a best start of seventh in 2004 with a best finish of eighth in 2006. Yeley finished three of those four starts inside the top-20 and has finished no worse than 23rd. He has completed all but five of the 806 laps available.
Facebook Fun: By visiting the official J.J. Yeley Fan Page on Facebook, fans will have the opportunity to place “Speed Dice.” Fans are encouraged to submit a number between 2-12 and Yeley himself puts two dice inside his No. 46 Whitney Motorsports Chevrolet and upon returning to the garage from the completion of his qualifying run, Yeley retrieves the dice and works with his management team to see which fans guessed the correct number for the dice. Once the guessers are correctly chosen, Yeley then places all the winners into his helmet with their name on it, shakes the helmet and retrieves the final winner of the weekly addition of “Speed Dice.” The winner will receive a memorabilia item from J.J. Yeley himself. For additional rules and instructions on how to play, please visit J.J. Yeley’s Facebook fan page.
New Sponsors Aboard: This weekend at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, Yeley welcomes Darlington (S.C.) Raceway and Espar Heating as the primary marketing partners of the team’s No. 46 Chevrolet bowtie.
The legendary “Lady in Black,” Darlington Raceway will host the oldest speedway race in NASCAR, the Showtime Southern 500 on May 7, in conjunction with the Royal Purple 200 for the NASCAR Nationwide Series the day before. Darlington Raceway will also host the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series in the Too Tough to Tame 200 on Saturday March 12.
Espar Heating returns to the sponsorship front after being beaming aboard the No. 46 automobile for the Daytona 500 at Daytona (Fla.) International Speedway.
Las Vegas (Nev.) Motor Speedway Pre-Race Quotes: J.J. Yeley, driver of the Darlington Raceway / Espar Heating Chevrolet Impala:
On Las Vegas (Nev.) Motor Speedway: “I have never been much of a gambler, so to me Las Vegas is a place for adults to go and have some fun. I have always enjoyed coming to race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. It is fun track and always has a very good fan attendance.”
On His Fondest Las Vegas (Nev.) Motor Speedway Moment: “My fondest memory of Las Vegas would have to be my rookie year in the NASCAR Nationwide Series. I qualified seventh and had a strong run in the race. I had raced at the Bullring and the Dirt track outside of the 1.5 racetrack, but had never experienced NASCAR from the kind of excitement.”
On Taking Any Gambles This Weekend At The Race Track Or At The Casino?: “The only gambling I will be doing this weekend will be at the race track. I am not much of a gambler, I chose to save all of the luck that I can find and put it to good use for my number one passion, RACING.”
On A Small Budget Team Like Whitney Motorsports Having To Stay On The West Coast For Two Straight Weekends: It is very tough on a small team like Whitney Motorsports to have two races on the West coast. The team spent the week in Vegas after the PIR Subway Fresh Fit 500k getting the car turned around to become the Vegas backup. Thankfully we didn’t have any issues last week that would have but us in a position to not have the luxury of having a back up like some of the other small teams.”
On The IZOD IndyCar Series Roaring Into Las Vegas Motor Speedway And Any Thoughts About Returning To Open-Wheel Racing: “It is very interesting that the IZOD IndyCar series is putting up a huge sum of money for a NASCAR driver to win the final race of their season. Most people don’t know that I have run a dozen or so IRL races in the late 90s.. It would be interesting to have some conversations with teams that would be competitive enough to go for broke and win the Challenge and take home the five million dollar prize!”
Fast Links:
Driver / Team: J.J. Yeley on the web: JJYeley.com
Twitter: @JJYeley1
Facebook: Official J.J. Yeley Facebook page “JJ Yeley Official”
###
DRIVER PUBLIC RELATIONS CONTACT:
NAME: Chris Knight, Knight Motorsports Management
PHONE: 239.834.9797
EMAIL: chris@chrisknightpr.com
DRIVER SPONSOR CONTACT:
NAME: Bob Chasse, Genuine Partners
PHONE: 386.566.8754
EMAIL: bob.chasse@genuine-partners.com