Yeley turning last year's pitfalls into 2007 success (cont'd)

"It just shows what the potential of this team should have been last year," Yeley said. "We had a lot of really good runs, were fast a lot of the time but weren't able to close the deal. Sometimes that was my fault and I am the first to blame myself. But there were times that as a team we just didn't do the right thing."

Those issues were addressed in the offseason.

"We were fast, we were competitive, we just weren't consistent enough," Yeley said. "Consistency is an easy thing to fix compared to trying to find speed in a racecar and a race team."

Yeley's best stretch of the season came in July, when he finished 10th, 12th and 11th in consecutive weeks from Chicagoland to Pocono. But that was preceded by three runs of 33rd or worse and followed with four consecutive weeks of finishing no better than 31st.

"We changed our approach to a couple of different things, made a couple of changes on our race team and I think we found the right chemistry. So far things have worked pretty good."

But they could be better.

"We lost a couple of spots in the closing laps in California. Then we had a bad pit stop under green that cost us track position in Las Vegas," Yeley surmised. "I think we have given up 40 points that we should have, but at the same time, we are still in the top 10 so we can't complain too much."

Yeley will start 20th on Sunday after posting a speed of 189.850 mph. That was more than 3 mph slower than Ryan Newman's top qualifying speed, but faster than other notable Chevys such as Dale Earnhardt Jr., Jeff Burton, Kevin Harvick and Hamlin.

"Last year we were satisfied," Yeley said of his 15th-place Atlanta finish, "but at the same time, we have almost had [some] top-10s this year, so it would be nice to have that or a top-five so we can go on and start winning races."