More than five hours before the start of that night's Sprint Cup event at Phoenix International Raceway, driver J.J. Yeley emerges from his motor home wearing jeans, sunglasses, and a polo shirt bearing the logos of his car sponsor and race team. The first vehicle he jumps into this early Saturday afternoon isn't his No. 96 racecar, but a tricked-out, customized golf cart with leather seats, satellite radio, a police siren and flames painted down the sides.

Yeley plugs his iPod into a dashboard console and rap music thunders from the speakers, turning heads as the golf cart zips along the serpentine infield road. He's here to race, yes, to drive a Toyota for Hall of Fame Racing at his hometown track. But not right now. That comes later, in the second half of Yeley's work day. The first half, the one the television cameras never see, begins with a ride on an overpowered golf cart, speeding toward the midway of NASCAR team merchandise haulers parked outside the speedway.

Every driver with a national sponsor goes through the routine to some degree. It might begin with an autograph signing on a Sunday morning, or a dinner with select company executives and media members on Saturday night. It might include a talk before a few dozen invited guests in a suite overlooking the racetrack, or a speech in front of several hundred employees of a sponsoring company in a hospitality tent. It might include a weekday visit to a factory or a corporate headquarters, or photos and autographs for VIPs on the starting grid moments before climbing into the car.

This is the payback for all those millions of dollars a sponsor pours into the car. This is when Sprint Cup competitors put aside their driving helmets and put on the unseen hat of corporate spokesman. This is why it's so important for drivers to be able to speak in public, to be able to comfortably interact with others, to be able to represent the company on the hood of their vehicle outside as well as inside the car. There's no manual for it. Young drivers don't necessarily pick up corporate networking and public speaking skills while learning to pilot midget cars or late models. But they have to have them if they want to race at NASCAR's highest level, where representing the car sponsor is a big part of the game.

"I think it's important to have somebody with some knowledge to kind of help you through that aspect of it, or help prepare you for that side of it," said four-time Cup champion Jeff Gordon, one of the best in the business off the track as well as on. "I feel like I was fortunate to come into an organization like Hendrick Motorsports. I was around Mark Martin early on when I was at Bill Davis. You can't prepare yourself for those types of commitments that come along with it, especially if you start having success early on. It turns your world upside down, and you're just trying to race and drive, and you start to realize that that's only half of it."

For Yeley, that half begins in earnest after the bass-thumping golf cart navigates the sprawling campgrounds and fan areas outside of the Phoenix track, and pulls up to the merchandise trailer he shares with fellow Toyota driver Dave Blaney. There's a robust cheer from people in the waiting crowd, some of whom have been in line for more than an hour -- this for a driver still searching for his first career Sprint Cup victory, and sitting 33rd in points entering the race.

"A lot of people have been asking about it. I think we're going to have a good crowd," says Jim Walker, who drives the merchandise trailer from event to event and manages it on site. Yeley enters through a back door, and takes a seat on a stool facing the open side of the trailer. Beside him is a foam koozie full of Sharpie markers which write in black or silver -- the former for light-colored materials to be signed, the latter for darker ones. Like most drivers, Yeley carries a marker with him at all times. Ever-present public relations man Joe Crowley always has two.

Yeley signs at about 75 percent of Sprint Cup tour stops, and he signs a little of everything, from shirts and jackets and helmets to die-cast cars and checkered flags and ticket holders. He's clearly at ease, making small talk with the fans, posing for photos, shaking hands with locals who remember the Arizona native from his days in the U.S. Auto Club. It's as big a crowd as Yeley will have all season, and he's unfailingly patient, even with people who aren't ready when it's their turn. He signs even a few pieces of Kyle Busch or Dale Earnhardt Jr. merchandise handed to him. He even speaks a few words into a cellular phone handed to him by a woman in line.

"You get people who want you to speak with their friends and family," Yeley says later. "That girl had a friend who had a birthday. You'd be surprised how many people ask you to do that."

He signs for a solid hour, inking his signature on everything from a replica gas can to a souvenir pit board, before the line is cut off and a new one begins to form for Blaney, who's due to arrive soon. Yeley is directed to a small side room where, unseen by the crowd outside, he signs roughly 12 large die-cast cars, 40 caps, and dozens of photos that Walker and Butch Cox, vice president of licensing and marketing for Hall of Fame Racing, stack on the trailer's display shelves. They're for fans who might have missed the signing, but still want an autographed item. They'll be gone before the end of the race.

Yeley exits the trailer through the back door, and runs smack into a line of waiting Blaneyacs that's wrapped around the vehicle. Sharpies and caps materialize almost out of thin air. Yeley has to sign his way out, autographing hats and T-shirts all the way back to the golf cart, until Crowley declares in a stern voice that the driver has to go. The souped-up cart rockets away like a stock car on a qualifying lap, leaving only wisps of rap music behind. How fast can it go? "I can't really say," says Scott Glasgo, Yeley's motor home driver, who pilots it. "Incriminating evidence."

Different directions

Autostock

Jeff Gordon stops for autographs much to the delight of the fans.

The more successful they become, the more limits drivers are able to place on race-day appearances. Gordon, for instance, doesn't sign at merchandise haulers, and it's easy to see why -- if Yeley drew a big enough crowd that some fans waited for an hour, a driver of Gordon's stature could attract a mob. Greg Biffle has a hard-and-fast rule: Nothing after the drivers' meeting, which is held two hours before the start of every Sprint Cup race. The demands from sponsors, fans, and media can be suffocating even for a mid-level driver, and being able to manage it all is key.

"You're pulled in so many different directions, and the directions are completely opposite of each other," Yeley said. "At Daytona, I'm sitting there talking with [team minority owners] Roger Staubach and Troy Aikman, saying there's no way they could ever do that. 'There's no way I could go talk to 30 people about a sponsorship program and then go play the Super Bowl.' Nothing like that ever happens. So this is a very unique thing that happens in any professional sport, where you go and sign autographs, you go meet people, you go do sponsor events, and expect to flip the switch and expect to be competitive and go out and drive a racecar."

Drivers have to trust their schedulers, have to be able to distill the overwhelming volume of requests down to something manageable, have to be able to say no. But even then, top drivers are constantly on the move. Take Gordon's schedule on the weekend of the Las Vegas race -- commercial shoot, media availability, and appearances for sponsors DuPont and Nicorette on Friday, a Make-A-Wish appearance on Saturday, and hospitality at the DuPont, Georgia Pacific and Lowe's tents on the morning of the race. All in addition to his regular on-track responsibilities.

Greg Biffle makes time for the fans, but also for himself.

“

I'll let my morning be all scatterbrained. ... I'm like sweat dripping off my forehead when I get to the drivers' meeting. But once I get there, I know my day's over. I can focus on racing now.

”

GREG BIFFLE

"It's kind of a routine that you get used to," Gordon said. "The only thing that shakes it up for us sometime, like [Phoenix] weekend when we have Nicorette on board, we might have to do a few more hospitalities on race morning. We might have to add a meet and greet on the weekend. Some of those things can be a little bit much when they add up. We were just talking, I'm going to do something for Dover Speedway as a part of their winner's circle program, so I'm going to go out to their hospitality on race morning. That's added, and I have to get prepared in advance and understand it and expect it before it comes. If it just gets thrown on last minute, then no. That's when I really get in trouble, when I get frustrated because something last minute gets thrown on me."

At Phoenix, Yeley is fortunate. A night race allows for more room in the schedule, long breaks during which a driver has plenty of time to meet with his team and get ready for the real business at hand. Everything is more compressed, and more hectic, for a Sunday afternoon event, before which drivers are often speeding from one pre-race appearance to another.

It all begs the question: How is this pre-race ritual not a distraction? Athletes in other sports have the time before their competition all to themselves. Football players like Aikman are usually off-limits to everyone even the day before a game. Yet Yeley and many other NASCAR drivers will pose for photographs and shake hands almost up to the green flag.

"If you're in a locker room three hours before kickoff, and the door opens up and somebody in marketing is parading through a sponsor, they're met with a lot of stares and evil looks," Aikman said. "This is our domain, what are they doing in here? We're trying to get ready for a ball game. That's not a criticism of the NFL or the NBA or anything like that. It is what it is. It's just that everyone gets in a routine and gets accustomed to how things are done. And for racecar drivers, this is kind of the way it's always been done. They're accustomed to that. They're not bothered by that. Whereas in other sports, that's just not the way it is."

Dave Duncan, sponsorship marketing manager for DLP, the company that backs Yeley's No. 96 car, said he goes to great lengths to ensure that the driver's sponsor duties never interfere with competition.

"I've always made it clear to the ownership of the race team and J.J. in particular, if we ever get to the point where we're impacting competition, do not hesitate to let us know," he said. "We'll do whatever we need to do to make sure competition comes first. There's no doubt we're there every Sunday, every Saturday night, to help J.J. win a race any way he can. The sponsorship support we give is obviously a key part of that, but we don't want to impede his ability to compete. I know that he understands that. To that end, we schedule around things like meetings with the crew chief, competition meetings in the morning. We schedule around driver meetings. We make sure we are never going to conflict with anything that he needs to do on his schedule to make sure he's prepared for the race that evening or that afternoon."

As for Yeley, he seems used to it. "I think if you do it enough, it's just part of the routine," he said. "So it's not so much a distraction." At least one of his fellow competitors would agree.

"I wouldn't say it's much of a distraction, because we've really got the car ready to go on Sunday morning," Biffle said. "One thing that I don't do that some drivers have to do is, after the drivers' meeting, I'm out. No autographs, no meet and greets, no anything. I go back to my bus, I get something to eat, get dressed, kind of relax, and get in the car. It gives me an hour. I don't want to run rampant, put your uniform on, hurry up, and now go drive. I don't do that. I'll let my morning be all scatterbrained. But after I sit in the drivers' meeting, I go straight back to my bus and get some lunch. By that point I'm back to normal. I'm like sweat dripping off my forehead when I get to the drivers' meeting. But once I get there, I know my day's over. I can focus on racing now."

Working the room

Motorsports Images and Archives

J.J. Yeley entertains a group from DLP with minority Hall of Fame owners Roger Staubach and Troy Aikman.

When Yeley's golf cart arrives at its next stop, the racetrack's tower suites, there is no crowd there to greet him. There is, however, a Maricopa County deputy sheriff, who escorts the driver and his party into an elevator. At the top Yeley is led down a long exterior hallway and into a suite overlooking Turn 1. The walls are painted the same deep blue as Yeley's racecar, and adorned by photos of the driver. The 36 people inside, many of them snacking on nachos and chicken fingers, whistle and applaud as the driver representing their company walks in.

DLP gives millions of dollars a year to Yeley's team, and now it's time for Yeley to give a little back to DLP. The people here are primarily customers, guests, and retail partners of the technology company that backs the No. 96 car, and this is the moment they've been waiting for. Yeley walks to the front of the room and coolly addresses the crowd, which groans when he breaks the bad news about his engine failure the previous day. But still, he's upbeat. "This is my hometown track," he says. "I am prepared to do whatever it takes to win. So you're going to see a lot of aggressive driving tonight." That brings cheers and applause.

There are a few perks with your car owners also in charge of a baseball team, like throwing the first pitch.

“

The starting pitchers are like, 'I'm not talking to anybody the day of a start,' and the position players aren't talking to anybody an hour before the game. Here, five minutes before you go 200 mph with 42 other cars, you're joking around and taking pictures.

”

TOM GARFINKEL

He's extremely poised, but then again, this is nothing new. For a NASCAR driver, sponsor hospitality is as much a part of a race weekend as pit stops and practice. The crowds can vary; three dozen for Yeley, or 300 for Denny Hamlin, whose car sponsor is FedEx. The largest group Gordon will speak before this season is 1,000 in a DuPont tent. Away from the racetrack, there are appearances at headquarters or corporate meetings that can attract hundreds of people.

"Some sponsors want you to speak at their corporate summit, and that's big-time stuff," said Biffle, who is sponsored by 3M. "The way I've done it is, I've never been good in front of a crowd of people. I think everybody gets a little nervous. But I just think of it just like I'm talking to just another person. That helps me and I kind of zone out. The thing that I'm not good talking to a big group about is something I'm not familiar with. If you want to talk racing with me here, I'm great with that. You want to talk about how a product works or what the market share of this and that is? That's not me."

But the people in the hospitality suite want to talk racing. Yeley fields questions about camber, about where wrecks usually occur at Phoenix, about what caused his accident the week before at Texas. Afterward there are photos and handshakes and autographs for everybody, including one guy in a Kurt Busch shirt. "You lose a bet?" Yeley deadpans. He's smooth and unflappable throughout.

"I guess the more you do it, the easier it gets," he says later. "I guess a lot of guys are really good at it, some guys aren't. Some guys get real repetitious with what they do, I try to keep it real light. Most of those people, they don't know a lot about racing. They've won something, they're part of a company that's gotten a bunch of tickets. Most of them have seen a race on TV, but really don't have an idea. So if you get real specific into something, you can lose them. So you just make it fun for them."

Yeley often appears at DLP hospitality functions with Aikman, who had a schedule conflict and was unable to be in Phoenix. But the quarterback-turned-NFL television analyst understands that a driver's responsibility to a sponsor does not end when he climbs out of the car.

"These drivers definitely become spokesmen not only for your race team but for your sponsor," Aikman said. "How well they conduct themselves, how well they speak, because they are asked to do so many appearances, directly impacts how that race team and sponsor are perceived. So it's very important. And I know that even if you're running really well, if you don't have a guy who you think is marketable, then I think you're going to feel like you never really got to where you wanted to go as a team. And then likewise, now you want the guy who represents the organization, is bright, speaks well, all those things, but if he's never running up front, no one really gets the chance to see all that. Everyone's always looking for the total package when it comes to these drivers."

Hall of Fame's ownership believes Yeley has that package, even though his on-track woes continue to mount. Later Saturday night, he'll be running in the top 20 when he'll get caught up in an accident not of his own making, and knocked outside the top 35 in owner points. A driver's ability to speak and present himself well in public are very important given the investments sponsors make today. But they're not as important as being able to run up front.

"In the order of priority to me, it's No. 1, can they drive fast and win races," said Tom Garfinkel, who along with fellow Arizona Diamondbacks executive Jeff Moorad are the majority owners of Yeley's car. "J.J. has that kind of credentialed past. He won 24 races in sprint cars in '03, that doesn't happen by accident. Secondly, you look for people that have the right value structure, that accept responsibility, that are good people, that have a leadership quality about them. Third would be how well they articulate themselves, and that's kind of gravy. The first two are really, really important. The third is a good one to have."

Smile, then drive

Autostock

The Yeleys: J.J., Kristen and Faith

The Saturday schedule allows Yeley an hour to spend with his wife and daughter before his presence is required at the drivers' meeting, held at Phoenix in an air conditioned tent adjacent to the competitor motor home lot. As it is every week, attendance is mandatory; miss the meeting, and start at the rear of the field. Event director David Hoots marks off each driver and crew chief as they enter. If he doesn't see them, he'll ask for them to raise their hand -- "Crew chief on the 78?" -- right before the meeting starts.

Yeley and crew chief Steve Boyer are on time. Every week there are special guests, and NASCAR vice president for competition Robin Pemberton steps forward to introduce them. On this Saturday the list includes NBA great Rick Barry, skiing champion Bode Miller, Jared the Subway guy, an array of military brass and Marine Lance Cpl. Kyle Earl, who lost his right hand in Iraq when the armored vehicle he was driving ran over an improvised explosive device. Earl, who's at the race as a guest of Hall of Fame minority owner and former Marine Tom Davin, receives a vigorous standing ovation. Yeley's car will sport a decal for the Injured Marine Semper Fi Fund, which provides assistance to wounded members of the service.

J.J. Yeley poses with Iraq war veteran Marine Lance. Cpl. Kyle Earl prior to the race at Phoenix.

“

The accessibility that NASCAR provides is unique in sport.

”

JEFF MOORAD

Much of what follows is, like everything else this race day, routine. Like an umpire going over the ground rules, Hoots announces items like race distance and minimum speed. He reminds drivers to index their steering wheels, test their safety harnesses, and drop their window net in the event of an accident. He tells the competitors where pit road speed begins and ends, goes over the schedule for the next event in two weeks at Talladega, and asks for questions. Sometimes there are a few, usually regarding the entrance to pit road. Today there are none.

After a prayer, the meeting breaks up. For Yeley and the other drivers, now the work of getting ready for the event itself finally begins. It's back to the motor home to eat and change into his driving suit. It's over to the No. 96 transporter in the garage area for a strategy meeting with Boyer and the rest of the team. Then it's out to the frontstretch for driver introductions, also mandatory. Yeley, who receives a rousing cheer from his hometown crowd, appears on the stage along with Earl. On the spot, he invites the Marine to ride around the track with him and David Ragan, and the trio make a slow lap in the bed of a pickup, waving to the crowd.

But Yeley's pre-race duties aren't over yet. Standing beside his car on pit road are members of his crew, majority owners Garfinkel and Moorad, and a number of guests of Hall of Fame Racing. Yeley shakes everyone's hand and poses for photograph after photograph, now mere moments before the engines are set to fire. If he needs some time to focus on the task at hand, he doesn't show it. "Here, hold onto these until the NASCAR officials come looking for them," he says, handing a bystander a set of keys. Turns out they're from the pace car parked behind Yeley's vehicle.

Garfinkel has brought some of his Diamondbacks baseball players to races before, and they're all astonished at what goes on before Yeley climbs into the car. "Every one of them is blown away with this, right here," he said. "Right before they race, they're shaking hands, taking pictures. The starting pitchers are like, 'I'm not talking to anybody the day of a start,' and the position players aren't talking to anybody an hour before the game. Here, five minutes before you go 200 mph with 42 other cars, you're joking around and taking pictures. They were blown away by that."

Moorad agrees. "The accessibility that NASCAR provides is unique in sport," he said. "Not even a pro golfer is going to be this involved with their support group prior to the event."

Yeley stands for the national anthem with one arm holding daughter, Faith, and the other wrapped around wife, Kristen. A Fox cameraman zooms in for a close-up, unable to resist the scene. After the flyover there are hugs and pats on the back and even more photos. The crowd still lingers as Yeley slides into the cockpit of his No. 96 car, the only place he'll have to himself. He takes off his sunglasses, hands them to his public relations man, and begins to buckle in for the 312 laps ahead. His first job on this Saturday is over. His second one is about to begin.