J.J. Yeley will be back in a full-time NASCAR Cup Series ride in 2020. On Thursday, Rick Ware Racing announced the longtime veteran would race for the team for the full 2020 Cup schedule. The team will field three full-time cars.
“I am excited to have J.J. Yeley on board with the Rick Ware Racing organization for the 2020 NASCAR Cup Series season,” team owner Rick Ware said in a release. “J.J. is a great asset to any team, and has a proven track record for bringing home solid finishes for RWR. I look forward to having him on board, as we continue to grow this team.”
A journeyman racer in recent years, Yeley last raced full-time in Cup in 2015 with Tommy Baldwin Racing; he had a best run of fourteenth at Talladega Superspeedway that year, though it was run in conjunction with a full campaign in the NASCAR Xfinity Series. In 2019, he has raced across all three national series, including fourteen Cup races with RWR in their fleet of cars; his best finish is twelfth at Daytona International Speedway in July. The two parties had first partnered for the 2018 Bojangles’ Southern 500 at Darlington Raceway.
He also has fourteen starts in the 2019 Xfinity season, all but two coming with RSS Racing. In August, he ran all three national series events at Bristol Motor Speedway, where he finished thirty-first in his lone Gander Outdoors Truck Series start of the year, scored his best Xfinity run of sixteenth, and debuted RWR’s #54 with a twenty-eighth in Cup.
“I can’t thank Rick and Lisa Ware enough for the opportunity to be back behind the wheel of a NASCAR Cup Series car full-time next year,” Yeley commented. “They are a family owned team, who continues to grow and build new relationships with sponsors, and expand their efforts in NASCAR. Over the past couple weeks, we’ve accumulated some pretty solid finishes and can’t wait to see what we can accomplish in 2020.”
In 2019, RWR has fielded four different numbers from #51 to #54 for an assortment of drivers. The #51, technically operating under the Petty Ware Racing banner, and the #52 have run all thirty-five races so far, with the #51 ahead in the owners’ championship in thirty-fourth.
