JOLIET, Ill. — The USG Fiberock 100 for the USAC Silver Crown Series could have been an exciting battle down the stretch Friday at Chicagoland Speedway, but fate and J.J. Yeley turned it into an old-fashioned rout.
Yeley won the pole and his 14th Silver Crown race in a 67-lap wire-to-wire run that saw him seldom challenged. Yeley, driving A.J. Foyt’s black No. 14, finished nearly four seconds ahead of Tim Barber, who nipped Silver Crown point-leader Wayne Reutimann, Jr. for second.
The challenge to Yeley that most expected never developed.
Defending event winner Aaron Pierce, whose engine problems in practice forced him to start last in the 16-car field after an engine change, was poised for a historic run to become the first driver to win a Silver Crown race from last place.
Pierce, driving the Sam Pierce Chevrolet entry, was 10th at the end of the first lap and fifth by lap eight. He moved steadily from there into second place by lap 50 of 67, but fate intervened two laps later when his engine overheated and he parked the car and finished 12th.
Whether he could have caught Yeley was a matter of conjecture.
“I just had a big horsepower motor,” Yeley said of his runaway victory. “It was a new motor we had just gotten from Speedway Motors. On the restarts we had, I drove it hard for a few laps and just backed off from there.”
Pierce wasn’t so sure it would have been that easy for Yeley had his engine not overheated.
Yeah, I would have caught him,” Pierce said. “We had the best car out there, but when the engine heated up, I was losing power. I tried to hold on, but it just died on me.”
The summary:
Qualifications: 1. J.J. Yeley, Foyt 14, 30.885; 2. Cameron Dodson, Edwards/RE 199, 30.890; 3. P.J. Jones, Paternoster 41, 31.202; 4. Pablo Donoso, Foyt 11, 31.217; 5. Tim Barber, Pierson 28, 31.496; 6. Wayne Reutimann, Jr., Reutimann 00, 31.500; 7. Bud Kaeding, BK 29, 31.776; 8. Jerry Coons, Jr., RW 27, 31.937; 9. Billy Wease, Western Speed 12, 31.979; 10. Marc Jessup, Vance 2, 31.981; 11. Mat Neely, RW 17, 32.120; 12. A.J. Fike, Hemelgarn/RFMS 91, 32.254; 13. Paul White, Mucci/Matczak 99, 32.376; 14. Brian Tyler, Team Six-R 21, 32.714; 15. Mike Murgoitio, Team Six-R 19, 33.295; 16. Aaron Pierce, Pierce 26, no time.
Feature (100 laps): Yeley, Barber, Reutimann, Dodson, Jones, Kaeding, Fike, Donoso, Wease, Neely, Tyler, Pierce, Coons, White, Murgoitio.