Nascar and Racing J J Yeley

At least he got to meet Jack Bauer before he lost his ride.

J.J. Yeley's fall from one of the top teams in NASCAR's Sprint Cup Series took another tumble Wednesday afternoon as he was dropped from his ride in the No. 96 Hall of Fame Racing Toyota.

Yeley, who has put together an unremarkable season of one whole Top-5 (it came in the same race that Kurt Busch won thanks to rain at New Hampshire) after getting bounced from Joe Gibbs Racing in 2007 will be replaced with Brad Coleman, the team announced today:

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (Aug. 6, 2008) – Hall of Fame Racing officials announced Wednesday that NASCAR Nationwide Series driver Brad Coleman, who has been under contract as a test driver for Hall of Fame Racing since November 2007, will make his NASCAR Sprint Cup Series debut by piloting the No. 96 DLP HDTV Toyota Camry in the Aug. 17 3M Performance 400 at Michigan International Speedway in Brooklyn.

Coleman, 20, is currently running a full-time season in the Nationwide Series and has put together equally unimpressive results with a single Top-10 at Las Vegas in 2008. He drove for Joe Gibbs Racing's Nationwide Series program in a limited role in 2007.

I guess you could say Saturday night's LifeLock.com 400 at Chicagoland Speedway for J.J. Yeley (yay yay yay-lee!) was pretty normal.

The No. 96 Hall of Fame Racing team started officially in 40th and finished 24th, but the setbacks along the way incurred from NASCAR make that finish seem a little more impressive.

You see, J.J. Yeley is a fan of cold water. He likes to drink it, especially when sitting inside a hot race car for 400 miles. He's not so much a fan of warm water, though, like the water inside his race car after sitting through inspection in the July sun in the midwest. And so, his team replaced his warm water bag with a cold water bag -- like they've done for nearly every race this season -- just prior to the race.

NASCAR wasn't a fan of the move, though. Because Yeley's car had already gone through inspection and because there wasn't an official present to see the H2O transaction, they got suspicious. Really suspicious.

They took the No. 96 off of pit road, put it back through inspection, and in doing so, didn't really find anything different. It made him late joining the field, and as soon as the green flag dropped, NASCAR called the No. 96 in for a pass through penalty for "Disobeying a NASCAR Request". The move dropped him behind the field and one lap down.

That's a steep penalty for a dude that just simply wants some high quality H2O in his ride -- or at least some water that isn't going to boil his insides.

Tony Stewart knew he was in trouble.

The driver of the No. 20 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota had started the race -- actually more like the race weekend -- feeling under the weather. And as the field took the green flag for Saturday night's Coke Zero 400 at Daytona, Stewart was hoping he could muster up enough strength to complete all 160 laps.

For a while, as the sun was setting, it looked like he would do it. After starting 17th, Stewart had moved all the way into the Top-5 with a car that likely could have led had he been wanting to push the issue early. Then, the handling started to go away, making the car extremely loose.

"I thought we were going to be able to (make it) for the first two runs, but once the car got a little bit loose and we had to start really sawing on the wheel, it's like it zapped the energy out of me and I started making mistakes," Stewart said.

In other words, Tony knew that he simply wasn't the best driver to be in the No. 20, and at lap 72, Stewart headed to pit road under caution, telling crew chief Greg Zippidelli that he had already unbuckled and was getting out in favor of relief driver J.J. Yeley. Yeley would finish 20th after getting caught in a last-lap crash.

"It wasn't worth putting those guys out on the track at risk and me making a mistake in front of them and creating a bad day for those guys," said Stewart.

"I was trying to be responsible and respectful to my race team and to the rest of the competitors out there."

To admit that sure takes some guts.

As of a western swing through Fontana, Calif. and Las Vegas, Nev. wasn't enough, the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series got its fourth official test session wrapped up in Phoenix on Tuesday afternoon.

The test at Phoenix International Raceway was the fourth of six that teams suggested to NASCAR prior to the season, and joins Daytona, California, and Vegas as tracks the teams have tested at.

Only Pocono and Lowe's Motor Speedway remain on the official Sprint Cup series testing docket. Teams can otherwise only test on tracks that the Sprint Cup series doesn't compete on.

Juan Pablo Montoya -- who was fastest during the Las Vegas test prior to the season -- again led all drivers over the five different sessions offered. The No. 42 put down a lap of 131.459mph in the Tuesday morning test session.

The other J.J. took command of Daytona preseason testing for the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Tuesday afternoon.

Instead of reading Jimmie Johnson's name at the top of the speed chart for the fourth-straight session, J.J. Yeley bolted to the top in the first drafting session of Preseason Thunder. The drafting session in which Yeley's No. 96 Toyota was the fastest was the first time NASCAR allowed cars to get into race mode and actually see how their cars handled with other cars on track.

Wednesday morning, Kyle Busch in his No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota took over the top spot in another drafting session at 187.786mph. Johnson fell to the 5th-place ranking on the grid.

Teams originally started out in packs of about three cars and eventually moved up to around 7 or 8 cars in a pack.

Tire issues also started to take some effect on Tuesday with Reed Sorenson spinning his No. 41 Ganassi Dodge after a tire let go. Casey Mears also scrubbed the wall with a similar issue.

NASCAR and Goodyear have taken the stance that the blistering of right-side tires is normal for testing, and that teams should figure out the issue on their own. Go figure.

Elliott Sadler, however, agreed:

"I think this is a normal issue in winter testing until we get some rubber down on the race track," he told reporters. "By the time we have the 24-hour race and stuff like that, there will be plenty of rubber down, we'll slide around a little bit more and tire problems will take care of themselves."

Sadler is correct with the amount of rubber that will be put on the race track. On tap before the Daytona 500 include the Rolex 24 Sports Car race, an ARCA race, the Budweiser Shootout, plenty of Cup, Nationwide, and Truck Series practice, the Nationwide Series race, the Craftsman Truck Series race, and the Gatorade Duels.

That should be plenty of track time to get the track worked in well.

Welcome to the 2007 NASCAR FanHouse Year in Review. Follow along each day until the end of 2007 as we look back on the top 25 drivers of the NASCAR Nextel Cup Series for the 2007 season. Heck, bookmark us if you have to! Today, we review the season of 21st-place J.J. Yeley.

Driver: J.J. Yeley -- Phoenix, Arizona
Team: No. 6 AAA Ford
Points: 21st (-3267)
2006: Finished 20th in Season Standings
Key Stats: 3 Top-10s, 1 Top-5, 5 DNFs
Back in 2008?: Yes, no longer with JGR, moves to No. 96 Hall of Fame Racing Toyota

J.J. Yeley undoubtedly has some of the most raw talent in the garage area.

That talent, though, doesn't mean a lick when your ride in the Joe Gibbs Racing three-part operation is compared with two Chase for the Nextel Cup contenders Tony Stewart and Denny Hamlin.

Yeley comes from the same background Stewart, Ryan Newman, Jeff Gordon and others come from -- USAC. Like his teammate Stewart, Yeley has driven in the Indianapolis 500 as well as winning the USAC Triple Crown. They're the only two drivers to ever do that.

Yeley scored 24 wins in USAC in 2004 -- more than anyone, ever. If need to understand the size of that, look it up, but know A.J. Foyt used to hold the title with five less.

Ousted Joe Gibbs Racing driver J.J. Yeley has signed a three-year deal with Hall of Fame Racing to replace Tony Raines in the # 96 Cup car sponsored by DLP beginning in 2008:

"I've never had to make a decision this difficult in my life, but I'm confident that Hall of Fame Racing will be competitive week-in and week out and build the future team around me as their driver. The affiliation with the Arizona Diamondbacks and the great people in Phoenix was just an added bonus that makes it the perfect fit for me."

Good deal for him. He gets to race in Gibbs equipment and have enormous resources at his disposal from a team focused solely on him. Of course, no one's sure exactly how good that Toyota equipment will be, but that's a subject for another post.

As a NASCAR fan who's never seen him compete in any other series, I've always had difficulty comprehending that Yeley once broke a record held by A.J. Foyt. I was reminded again yesterday by the team's press release.

Dave Moody is reporting that in the next two to three weeks, Joe Gibbs Racing will announce a deal with driver Kyle Busch for 2008 and beyond.

Rather than expand to a four-team operation to make room for the new foliage, J.J. Yeley is expected to be kicked to the curb and picked up by Wood Brothers/JTG Racing to drive the #21 Ford.

Busch would pilot the #18 Interstate Batteries Cheverolet Toyota.

Tony Stewart and Busch on the same team? This should be HIGHlarious. Will they be competing for the Most Outspoken Driver Award®? Calling All Sponsors: New award sponsorship opportunity available. This is an amazing opportunity for any pharmaceutical company to promote their drugs that relieve symptoms of the Foot in Mouth and It Wasn't My Fault diseases.

Stewart Spews Bullsh*t, Pays the Price
As expected (?), NASCAR announced today that Tony Stewart has been fined $25,000 and penalized 25 points for "actions detrimental to stock car racing."

His crime: using one of the seven dirty words on the air.

In his post-race interview, Stewart thanked the fans who support him week in and week out and putting up with the bullsh*t from all the other drivers' fans.

Even though ESPN, unlike TNT, was able to bleep the word out before it could cause irreparable damage to young fans' ears, Stewart will still be fined, as Dale Earnhardt Jr. was in 2004. The fine has gone up since then, but the points deduction was the same. Update: Apparently it wasn't bleeped out it all markets.

Stewart maintains his 5th place position in the standings and isn't too concerned about his punishment:

"Whatever happens, they still can't take this trophy away from me."

Note to NASCAR: If you really want to get drivers attention with penalties, start stripping them of their trophies and wins.