JJ Yeley, talks about changes to his #18 Interstate Batteries Chevrolet team and adapting to stock car racing from his open-wheel past...
Q:
How much trust does there have to be when the team starts making changes to your crew?
JJ Yeley:,/B>
There's not so much a trust factor, because a lot of the guys on the Interstate Batteries team were around during the Bobby Labonte years and had been there for a really long time and there's not a very high turnover rate at Joe Gibbs Racing. And these guys spend as much time on the road as a race car driver. It's very difficult for them. The last two years for Bobby weren't exactly good, and I think that brings the morale down for the guys - especially when they're gone for so long. Then you bring a rookie in and you have highs and lows week in and week out and, because of that, the morale doesn't get any better. And I think sometimes you need to bring in something fresh. The changes we made on this team are JJ Yeley guys now. These are my guys. So far, from the tests we've had and from going to Daytona, everyone is working a lot harder and there's more excitement. I think that's going to make the year go a lot smoother for us.
Q:
How did dirt racing prepare you for stock car racing?
JJ:
I think the biggest thing you learn from Sprint car or dirt racing is that you're taking a car that weighs 1100 lbs that has 850 horsepower and you have to do your best to get all that power to the ground and you don't do it with traction control, you do it from the seat - the feel in your butt and the way you work the throttle pedal. These cars don't always drive perfect and I think being able to adjust the way the car's handling whether it's good or bad and taking the best of it and making the car faster because of it."
Q:
And how much effort went into making the switch from open-wheel to stock cars?
JJ:
It was really a lot. What comes down to it is that a stock car is a big old heavy race car. They don't exactly respond very well sometimes. They're just a stock car. The name fits the car sometimes. The past couple of years they've made these cars drive a lot better and feel a lot racier. But, because of the car having more control of the driver versus an open-wheel car because it's so lightweight, you can change the way you're driving the car and change your lane on the race track, and take a tenth place car and maybe win with it. At most of these race tracks you go to, you have to be on the bottom. And if your car is not handling on the bottom, you can't drive your car up harder or different or better to make it faster. It's a matter of maintaining until you can make a pit stop and being able to communicate to your crew chief the changes that you need to make your car better. That's why you see the same guys at the top week in and week out. You've got to have that relationship or that ability to fix your car as the race goes on. So obviously it doesn't matter how your car is the first 50 laps. It's those last 50 laps. The guy who knows the most about his race car and can work the best with his crew chief are going to make sure they have that right.
Q:
How long did it take you to feel comfortable in a stock car?
JJ:
It didn't take me very long at all. The longest transition was for me to get used to not overdriving the car and being more comfortable maybe riding around when the car is ill-handling, and then being able to communicate to the crew chief how far you needed to go with the changes. In the Busch Series it's more critical because you only make half as many pit-stops. You've got to make sure you make a ton of changes in that first stop if your car isn't handling. Hopefully, you don't go too far so that in those second and third stops you can really fine-tune the race car. In my whole first year, I don't think I ever got aggressive enough with the changes I needed on my race car. If we started the race good, we ran the whole race good. If we started out bad, we never really got where we needed to be. I think that's something I've become a lot more comfortable with in making those changes and making some of those decisions myself now.
Q:
How do Saturday Busch Series races relate to Sunday Cup races?
![JJ Yeley - Interstate Batteries Chevrolet [pic credit: GM media]](http://pix.crash.net/thumbs/289112.jpg)
