Despite Bad Luck at at Rockingham, Labonte Edges Closer to First Championship

If you hadn’t watched the last two races on the NASCAR Winston Cup circuit, you would have thought Bobby Labonte had walked under a ladder or broken a mirror lately with the run of bad luck he has had over the last two weeks. While that is not the case, Labonte knew it was only a matter of time before he experienced a bit of bad luck like some of his fellow competitors had earlier in the season. After getting shuffled at Talladega last week from second position all the way back to 12th position on the closing laps, Labonte thought he was past his troubles. Unfortunately that would not be the case today in Rockingham.

After running in the top-ten all day long, Bobby Labonte radioed into his Interstate Batteries Racing Team on lap 318 and told them the a tire was going down and they were going to have to pit. Labonte entered the pits on lap 319 and dropped from 10th position all the way back to 25th position, one-lap down. Following the pit-stop, the hope was the race would go green the rest of the way and Labonte would have a chance on new tires to make up some time and positions. Once again, bad luck cast a cloud over the team as the caution flew on lap 321 for a fire on pit road. The rest of the race was spent trying to gain the lost lap back, but to no avail. While they did not get there lap back, Labonte did manage to be the first car one-lap down to the leaders and finish in 20th position.

“This was typical Rockingham,” explained Labonte. “You never know what is going to happen. But we were very fortunate. This Interstate Batteries Pontiac was about a seventh place car all day. We didn’t really have the right set-up. At times we were a little better than that and at times we were a little worse than that. I guess we got a pop-rivet or something in the tire and the left rear tire was going down. At least we caught it. That is probably the first flat tire I’ve had probably in a year and a half or two years, and I was glad I still felt it because I just haven’t had one in a while. But hey, that’s the way it goes. It could have been a lot worse. There's nothing you can do about it except go on to the next one like we have been all year.”

While Labonte and the team were disappointed with the results of Sunday’s finish, they are well aware that they dodged a major bullet in the form of Dale Earnhardt. Labonte’s closet rival in the chase for the championship had been running in the top-ten himself most of the day until the final pit stop. After restarting in 10th position, Earnhardt had a terrible push in the car that caused him to drop all the way back to a 17th place finish. When the final finish and points were tallied, Labonte lost only nine points towards the championship.

When asked if he dodged a major bullet, Labonte responded, “Well, but if we hadn’t had that (flat tire) we would have picked up 50 points maybe, too, so we’re just very fortunate that we caught everything. If that caution hadn’t come out we might not have been quite so bad. But the cautions came out too much for us there for a while anyway. It’s just one of those days here at Rockingham. It could happen to you or it could not happen to you. It’s just one of those deals. We’re very fortunate that it is what it is and it’s over now, so we’ll go to the next one.”

Labonte looks forward to traveling to the Valley of the Sun in two weeks to improve on his third place finish from 1999. Be sure to watch Bobby and the Interstate Batteries Racing Team at the Checker Auto Parts/Dura Lube 500K at Phoenix International Raceway on Sunday, November 5th on TNN at 1:00 PM (CST).