J.J. Yeley starts 11th on Sunday. Credit: Autostock

Cool, calm Yeley strong in Talladega quals

Cup rookie posts fifth start of 12th or better this season

TALLADEGA, Ala. -- Making a qualifying run around the 2.66-mile Talladega Superspeedway would give nearly anybody a severe case of the butterflies.

Credit: Autostock

Lineup Aaron's 499 Pos. Driver Make Speed 1. E. Sadler Ford 188.511 2. T. Stewart Chevy 187.658 3. C. Edwards Ford 187.320 4. D. Jarrett Ford 187.322 5. K. Busch Dodge 187.137 • Complete lineup, click here Pole positionSadler scores the top starting spot for the Aaron's 499 Learing from a legendJeff Gordon: 'Watching Earnhardt helped me win plate races' Sign up for TrackPass now BUY THE NEXTEL i836

Except J.J. Yeley.

Knowing that he was guaranteed a spot in Sunday's Aaron's 499, and that track position isn't as critical when cars can easily run four-wide here, Yeley just slid into the seat, mashed the throttle and kept it straight.

"Qualifying is not a real huge thing," Yeley said. "Unless you have something that's capable of getting the pole, it really doesn't make that big of a difference.

"You just have to worry about the wind and keeping the car as straight as possible as far as turning the wheel."

Yeley's lap of 186.827 mph was good enough for 11th quickest, the fifth time this season that he's started 12th or better.

"Because we didn't make any kind of runs yesterday, I had no idea what the car was going to be capable of," Yeley said. "This is a different car than I ran at Daytona. This is the car that was the primary speedway car last year.

"This weekend is the first time that I've sat in the car and just really didn't know what to expect."

Yeley never made a practice qualifying run during Friday's two practices, instead concentrating on getting the No. 18 Chevrolet ready for 500 miles in close quarters.

"There weren't a whole lot of cars that made qualifying runs and there are certain cars that are always really, really fast in qualifying and there's cars that are going to run better," Yeley said. "We worked real hard on making our car draft good and we might have given up something for fast time for qualifying.

"Being locked in the field, we felt having a good racecar is more important than qualifying good."

With the exception of Phoenix, where he started 30th and finished 28th, Yeley has finished worse than he's started in every race this season. He'd like to reverse that trend Sunday.