 | | J.J. Yeley and Denny Hamlin are battling for rookie of the year honors in the Nextel Cup Series. Credit: Autostock |
By David Newton, NASCAR.COM
March 7, 2006
03:24 PM EST (20:24 GMT)
Joe Gibbs Racing teammates Denny Hamlin and J.J. Yeley are a part of what NASCAR has billed as one of the top rookie classes in Nextel Cup history. Hamlin already has a victory in the Budweiser Shootout, a non-points event at Daytona International Speedway for 2005 pole winners and past event winners. He is 20th in points, one spot ahead of reigning Cup champion and teammate Tony Stewart, after a 12th-place finish at California. Yeley is 23rd after an impressive eighth-place finish at California, where he started fourth. Last week at the Busch Series race in Mexico City, where Hamlin won and Yeley finished fourth, the two took a break to talk about everything from PlayStation Portable games to what it will take to win the rookie of the year award. Q: Let's get right to it. Both of you said it would take a top-10 finish in the points race to win rookie of the year honors in Nextel Cup. Do you still feel that way after two races? Hamlin: J.J. was the one that really thought it was going to take somebody getting into the Chase to be the rookie of the year. That's really high hopes. We're sitting pretty decent in points even after crashing at Daytona. If we can just back up what we did at the end of last year, we were a Chase-contending car. We had a better average finish than most of the guys in the Chase. It's going to be tough, though. You're going to have learning curves. You may set the world on fire early and just level off. Look at Kasey Kahne his second year. We've just got to be patient. Yeley: I still believe it will take a top-10. A lot of people said that was kind of nuts. But if you go back four or five years, there are rookies that finished top-10 in points. It's not anything that is unachievable. But the competition has definitely jumped up the last couple of years. There are a lot more teams that have a chance at winning. But that's my goal, a top-10. I'm sure if we can get that accomplished a rookie award will come with it. Q: How do you size up the rookie competition so far? Hamlin: There isn't one favorite. Between me, J.J., Clint Bowyer and Martin Truex Jr, it's really tough. A lot of guys wrote J.J. off there at one time based on last year that he wouldn't be a contender. He showed at California he was. Six or seven races in, you're going to see somebody start to branch off. Yeley: I have equal equipment as Denny, so I know he's going to be tough. Clint Bowyer [8th] and Martin Truex Jr. [13th] to me are going to be the tough guys. You can't leave Reed Sorenson out, either, but he's the youngest of the guys and the least experienced. You have to weigh all of those things in. Q: Any side bets on who will win rookie honors between you two, particularly heading to Las Vegas this week? Yeley: Denny is a pretty big gambler, and I'm sure as we approach the end of the year something will come up. As for Vegas, I stay away from casinos. I make sure I stay at the racetrack as far away from them as possible. I know Denny will stay at them, though. Hopefully, he'll win big at the casino and I can run a little faster on the track. We probably would bet on a PSP [PlayStation Portable] game before we bet on a race. Hamlin: We have a lot of clean fun. It definitely makes the year go by faster. Q: So who's the best at PlayStation Portable? Yeley: We play a lot. We spent so much time traveling, because they're wireless you can be in one place and play somebody. Whatever it takes to kill a little time. But he's better than me. I'm married with a daughter. He has more time to play games. Hamlin: J.J. is pretty competitive in everything. After he had a fast practice lap [in Mexico City] he got on my channel and told me he was a few tenths of a second faster, what am I going to do about it. We do that kind of stuff all the time, whether it's racing or games. Yeley: We communicate really well with each other. At the same time we have that competition rivalry because we're on the same team. We're able to keep it friendly, but at the same time we push each other to do better. Because of that, the two of us will compete a little bit more. Q: What have you learned in the first two races at Daytona and California? Hamlin: It's been a different experience for sure. Ever since Daytona, things have really changed for me a lot. Winning that Shootout was a big deal. It definitely focused a whole lot more attention on us than what was before. We kind of flew under the radar last year in the Busch Series. We didn't make a whole lot of noise, but finished solid. We've still got to be realistic about our approach. We've got to get in the top 15 in points and stay there. That's my goal. Of course, you have high hopes of making the Chase. Everybody does. But it's going to be tremendously hard for a rookie to do it, even though our rookie class is the best that's been around in a long time. Yeley: I don't think it's anything I've learned this year. It's a matter of taking everything I did wrong last year and making sure I don't do it this year. Last year I felt I was auditioning for a ride and I tried overly hard and got myself in trouble. It's easy to have a couple of months off where you can sit back and think about all the things you've done wrong. Q: How much did it help getting Cup experience last season? Hamlin: It definitely gave us a leg up on a lot of guys. Running those last seven races paid huge dividends over running seven over the course of the entire year. It gave me and my team a little more time to gel. Yeley: Like I said, just learning from my mistakes. | 
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