JJ:
You can probably take 60-70 per cent of what you learn on Saturday and apply it to the Cup race. It is fun to me and it is just spending more time in a stock car, getting more laps and getting more experience. I am from Phoenix and I have raced Phoenix International Raceway plenty of times in a lot of different race cars and, last year, in the Busch fall race, I learned something I have never learned there in a stock car that made my car faster in turns three and four. I applied that to the Cup car and it worked. Here is a race track of all the places we go in the NASCAR Nextel Cup Series, that is the track I have the most experience on and my third year there in a Busch car, I learned something I had never before. As a race car driver, you can always learn something regardless if it is a Busch car or a Cup car, they might not be the same. It may be something to do with the track, it might have to do with the tires, with air pressure; there are so many things that happen to make a car fast.
Q:
Looking back, what are your memories of that first Cup season?
JJ:
It was one I would soon like to forget - 2006 was probably the worst racing season I have ever had in my career. It was probably the toughest mentally and I guess because I have such a good team, having a family made it a lot easier on me. I mean, I could have a bad day and I could go back to the motorhome and Faith, my daughter, would look at me - bear in mind she is one-year old, she doesn't care - and she is just glad to see her dad. Those things make it easier to let maybe a bad day at work roll off your back. Things are definitely going to be a lot better for us in 2007. Personally, I have learned a lot from the mistakes I have made. We have made a lot of changes on the team and I think those things are going to add up to a lot of success for us this year.
Q:
Was there a snowball effect when things started going badly?
JJ:
Yeah, it does. I think, the last quarter of the season, I was able to characterise what I needed to be doing during a race weekend - not to get excited about maybe something happened halfway through the race - and it was really easy at different points of the year to hit the panic mode. At that time, you feel like you need to do something if it's getting track position and get back out front and drive the race car harder and generally that puts you in a bigger shot of getting into more and more trouble. I'm definitely guilty of doing that a couple of times last year. I'm just thankful that I was smart enough to think about it during the off-season and learn from it and try to be sure I don't do the same thing this year.
Q:
You've made a good start to the 2007 season - can the snowball roll the other way too?
JJ:
Oh, absolutely. Racing is all about momentum. When you make it to the Nextel Cup level, this is the most difficult and competitive racing in the world. And you start out the season like we did last year 40th in points, you're trying to do whatever you can to make up stuff. Sometimes it works. Tony Stewart won a championship after finishing dead last at
Daytona. He's obviously a guy who is a very gifted race car driver, but he had the experience and the know how and the patience. And I guess being a rookie, I put myself in a bad position. But this year starting out tenth in points - not in the panic situation and knowing we have really good race cars, all of our tests have gone well and just knowing that we can go out there and work really hard, the finishes will come and we'll win races and we'll be in contention to make the Chase.
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Interview courtesy GM media]
![JJ Yeley - Interstate Batteries Chevrolet [pic credit: GM media]](http://pix.crash.net/thumbs/289112.jpg)
