Yeley Nears Triple Crown -- and More

Matt Kenseth may be the Winston Cup stock car champion, and Paul Tracy and Scott Dixon the open-wheel racing champions, but the hottest young driver in the country is second-generation racer J.J. Yeley of Phoenix.

Yeley, 27, is the U.S. Auto Club champion in sprint cars and Silver Crown cars and is on the verge of equaling Tony Stewart’s record as the only driver to win three USAC titles in the same year. All Yeley needs to clinch the midget car crown is to finish 18th or better in Saturday night’s Old Pueblo Classic in Tucson.

He will conclude his record-setting season in Steve Lewis’ midget Thursday in the 63rd Turkey Night Midget Grand Prix, a 100-lap USAC championship race at Irwindale Speedway.

Following in the footsteps of such former USAC champions as Jeff Gordon, Ryan Newman and Stewart, Yeley will switch to NASCAR next season with Joe Gibbs’ team. He has been testing this week in a Winston Cup car at Kentucky Speedway and will make his debut with Gibbs in the ARCA 200 at Daytona International Speedway in February.

“I’ll be running partial schedules with ARCA and the NASCAR Busch series next year,” Yeley said during a lull in last weekend’s Oval Nationals at Perris Auto Speedway, where he finished eighth. “Toward the end of the season, the plan is to drive in a couple of Cup races. That’s my goal, to be Tony’s teammate in the big series.”

Yeley won the sprint car series driving a Mopar-powered Twister owned by Stewart, and Stewart is also co-owner with car builder Bob East of the Silver Crown car Yeley drives. Yeley also won the Silver Crown series last year.

“Tony has been a lot of fun to drive for,” Yeley said. “He came to a few races, but I gave him a program report every week. I know he really prides himself on having won all three USAC championships [in 1995], but he told me in midseason that if anyone was going to also do it, he would like me to be the one.

“He helped a bunch with getting me together with Gibbs. I had four or five other offers and I went to Charlotte to check them all out, but after talking with Gibbs, he put together a package for me for next year.”

Stewart has driven for the former Super Bowl-winning football coach in all of his five seasons in NASCAR.

Yeley has had a remarkable year, winning a USAC season-record 24 races. In August, in a midget race at Belleville, Kan., he broke the previous record of 19, held jointly by A.J. Foyt, Sleepy Tripp and Jay Drake.

He will be seeking his first victory on Tucson Raceway Park’s three-eighths-mile paved oval, where his father, Cactus Jack, won three USAC midget races in 1987 and 1988.

The high point of his year, Yeley said, was winning USAC Silver Crown races on consecutive nights at Indianapolis Raceway Park on asphalt and the Indiana State Fairgrounds on dirt, a feat that earned him a $50,000 bonus.

“I’d say that ranks with racing in the Indianapolis 500 as the high points in my career,” he said. Yeley finished ninth in the 1998 500, despite having spun in the first turn of the first lap.

In the Turkey Night race, Yeley will be hoping to duplicate the win by Stewart in 2000 and also hoping to add his name to a list that includes four Indianapolis winners, Bill Vukovich, Johnnie Parsons, Parnelli Jones and Foyt, and one Winston Cup champion in Stewart. Yeley finished second to Dave Steele in the 2001 race and was fifth last year.

The ranks of Turkey Night non-winners is as impressive as its winners. Among the also-rans have been Indy 500 winners Sam Hanks, Mario Andretti, Rodger Ward and Johnny Rutherford and Winston Cup champion Gordon, who was fifth in 1989. Hanks was second three times.

Perris Finale

A week after winning $30,000 in the prestigious Oval Nationals sprint car race, Ventura’s Cory Kruseman will return Saturday night to Perris Auto Speedway to run in the track’s final 2003 race, the 50-lap Jack Kindoll Classic. It will also be the final Sprint Car Racing Assn. race of the year.

Richard Griffin, 39, the “Gasman” who flies to races in his private plane from his home in Silver City, N.M., has already clinched his fifth SCRA championship in six years. He will split $20,000 with car owner Ron Chaffin of Madera. He won the Kindoll Classic in 1999 and would like to cap this year’s winning season with another victory at Perris. He finished fifth in the Oval Nationals.

Kruseman, 33, the 2001 SCRA champion, has won the Kindoll race three times, in 1998, 2000 and 2001. He won the Oval Nationals in a Tony Stewart Motorsports sprint car but will be in a different one Saturday night. It is owned by Mark Alexander of Carson and is the one Kruseman drove to victory in a tense battle with Rip Williams at Perris on Sept. 4.

“It’s definitely the most money that I have ever won,” Kruseman said after the rain-delayed Oval Nationals. “Any time there’s big money up for grabs, it seems like I have great luck up until the final five laps, and then something happens. This time, nothing happened.”

SCRA President Ron Shuman, a seven-time series champion -- three with the SCRA and four with the old California Racing Assn. -- says that the non-wing racing organization is completing one of its more productive years.

“We have had a solid car count, about 35 for most races and 63 [last week] at Perris, and we had 21 of our regular drivers on the Midwestern tour for nine races in 12 days,” he said. “Our guys did very well against the USAC boys in the Non-Wing Championships [which Shuman founded] and two of the first three are SCRA graduates.”

Brent Kaeding, a Northern Californian from Campbell, won the 14-race series title, followed by USAC regulars Kruseman and Yeley. Next came the SCRA’s Damion Gardner, followed by Troy Rutherford and Griffin, who tied for fifth.

“We’re working on our 2004 schedule right now and it may have a few less races at Perris,” Shuman said. “We found it hurts attendance if we have too many back-to-back Saturday nights at the same track. Perris will still be our home base, but we might not be here as often.”

Saturday night’s race, sponsored by Temecula Valley Pipe and Supply, will be the last at Perris for Charlie Watson, as fine a general manager as any track ever had. He is leaving to get married and move to Las Vegas. Former beer distributor Jim Noe and Kim Donner will take over his duties next season.

SCRA points leaders: 1. Griffin, 2083; 2. Rutherford, Ojai, 1985; 3. Gardner, Concord, Calif., 1946; 4. Williams, Yorba Linda, 1708; 5. Steve Ostling, Corona, 1283; 6. Mike Spencer, Temecula, 1263; 7. Tony Jones, Orange, 1156; 8. Rickie Gaunt, Torrance, 1101; 9. Josh Ford, Camarillo, 1069; 10. Mike English, Norwalk, 1004.

Last Laps

More than 270 vehicles are expected to compete in the 36th Tecate SCORE Baja 1000, a single-loop race of 805 miles that will start this morning and finish Saturday night in Ensenada. Defending champions are teammates David Ashley and Dan Smith, who will drive a Ford F-150 in the featured trophy-truck class.

Two competitors who have been in all 35 Baja 1000s will be on the starting line again. They are Rod Hall, who will be 66 on Saturday, of Reno, in a Hummer, and Ron Bishop, 60, of Escondido, who will be riding a KTM motorcycle.

Josh Lakatos of Pasadena, champion of the USAC North Ford Focus midget car series, will race USAC South drivers in a 20-lap feature along with the Turkey Night Grand Prix at Irwindale. Todd Hunsaker of Chino Hills is the South series leader.... Lee Hatch of Covina won the speed truck championship by winning the final race Sunday at I-10 Speedway.

Weekly circle track racing is over for the year at Irwindale Speedway, but not straight-line racing. Its eighth-mile drag strip will remain open Thursday nights for $10 for spectators and $20 for racing. It will be closed Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s nights. Tech inspection starts at 4 p.m. and racing at 5.

Just in case: Newman-Haas Racing, one of the stalwarts of CART, tested with an Indy Racing League car this week with driver Bruno Junqueira at Phoenix International Raceway. Was it preparation for Newman-Haas’ first venture into the Indy 500, or is the team moving to the IRL?