While the weather encroached on Atlanta to shorten an epic Superspeedway race on Sunday, the community witnessed the rise of veteran JJ Yeley. Fans celebrated their favorite, who got replaced by Kyle Busch back in the day. Not just that, but JJ’s 7th position brought tears to many fans, watching the veteran redeem himself in the most hostile conditions on a high-speed Superspeedway like Atlanta.

The Atlanta race was full of hits and spins. While Five of the seven periods of caution during the race were caused by the hits, Yeley’s No. 15 was not one of them. This eliminated many drivers from contention due to damage and loss of track position. JJ Yeley had some difficulty maintaining track position in the middle of the pack, in contrast to the Fords that had been quick the entire weekend.

Replacing JJ Yeley with Rowdy, put him in the shadow for years

JJ Yeley had a magnificent career going for himself back in the day. After conquering the USAC scene and winning the coveted “triple crown,” he became the second driver behind the great Tony Stewart. Yeley, who was set to begin Stock car racing, signed with Joe Gibbs Racing in 2004, driving the #18 car full-time in 2005. It’s the same #18 car Kyle Busch later raced to win his two titles as he replaced Yeley in 2008.

Yeley got into the Stock car setting after a glorious run in USAC, continuing his legacy in 2007, and finished second just behind Casey Mears in the Coca-Cola 600. Later, he bounced back exactly three weeks later to snatch his first-ever career pole from the great Jimmie Johnson at the Nextel Cup level in Michigan.

However, his glory was short-lived after a horrific wreck with Mark Martin that left the veteran in an awful 29th spot in the standings. And consequently, JGR announced the arrival of “Rowdy” Busch, replacing Yeley as the #18 driver. Ever since then, the once-promising prospect has been in the shadows, waiting for redemption.

The veteran returned to the Cup Series with Tommy Baldwin Racing in 2017 and was announced as the full-time driver of the #27 Chevy Camaro by Rick Ware. But it was in Atlanta that he broke his losing streak, finishing 7th and recording his first top-10 finish since 2013 in Daytona.

Reacting to his top 10 performance, the veteran credited his Rick Ware Racing crew for their consistent hard work and also mentioned their partner, RFK Racing’s involvement. He said, “I can’t stress how critical and important it is for the alliance with RFK, I think they’ve been very generous with the time they’ve taken to help us make better race cars and just give us more information that we just never had the privilege to, so..”

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Fans too joined the joy as they expressed their genuine happiness seeing the 46-year-old climb back to his winning ways.

“Big day for #YeleyNation!” – Redditers laud JJ Yeley after he finished 7th in Atlanta

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As the #15 Ford crossed the finish line 7th on Atlanta Motor Speedway this past week, JJ Yeley had to battle his way to the finish with the likes of veteran Brad Keselowski and Bubba Wallace. And the decision to stay out on the field after Stage 2 proved to be valuable as this got the RWR driver into the top 10. With this performance, the veteran brought his 9th top 10 Cup career finish, the stellar performance also conveyed the 8th top 10 finish for RWR in Cup Series.

J.J. Yeley earns first NASCAR Cup Series top-10 finish in 10 years
by u/World71Racer in NASCAR

And following his bounce back, fans joined the fun, expressing their happiness to see the veteran climb back to the top.

An ardent fan wrote, “damn I meant to post this today. but his run last night was so fun to watch. had decent speed and ran between 20th-25th for most of the race, outran quite a few cars that you wouldn’t necessarily expect him to, and then held his own in the top 10 and actually made some passes to get up as high as 4th place at one point.”

While another user lauded the driver for his “big day,” “Amazing run yesterday in the 15!! It was amazing to see him duke it out those final laps! Big day for #YeleyNation!”

“Well deserved for him. Dude has worked hard to help smaller teams and it’s nice to see it pay off for him”

Whereas another fan expressed his joy seeing the 46-year-old underdog getting his big moment, “Pretty awesome stuff, it was cool to see so many underdogs running up front late.”

“Very happy for JJ and RWR. Great people and it’s great to see how great Yeley has been this season!”

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Despite getting replaced by Busch in JGR, JJ Yeley did not quit, and surprisingly, he went with lower teams to claw his way back. And the recent race certainly was a treat for old-school fans to see Yeley back on top, ending his slump just two places behind Kyle Busch.