Labonte Says Talladega Like a Big Game of Chess

For Bobby Labonte and the Interstate Batteries Racing Team the goal at Talladega was to survive and make it past the “big wreck.” Well they did both, but still left Talladega with a bit of disappointment after finishing in the 12th position. For the majority of the 188-lap event on Sunday, the lead pack of cars was stacked three-wide and ten deep. At one point late in the race, Labonte even radioed the crew to apologize for not playing a very good game of chess after getting shuffled from the lead pack all the way back to 29th position before making his charge back up towards the front.

“It was a good finish for us and it could have been a lot worse,” said a worn-out looking Labonte. “It’s mentally demanding. I’ve never played chess before but I am sure it would be like that. Typical Talladega racing. It’s just that they made it more exciting because they made the cars drive better and the made the wake of the draft so you could pick it up a lot faster. Daytona wasn’t a good race so they fixed it so know it’s a good race.”

After running in second position with five laps remaining and third when the white-flag was displayed, Labonte looked poised to grab his fifth win of the 2000 NASCAR Winston Cup season, but luck did not fall his way. Instead, numerous cars pulled out of line in the closing laps which allowed the rest of the field to close in and created a traffic jam only big cities could be envious of. For Labonte, it was a matter of trying to just hold on while everyone was bouncing off each other in a fight to the finish.

“It’s pretty adventurous,” smiled Labonte. “You pick and choose, fall back and ride around for awhile, have a snack, take a break, get back up front, do that for a little bit. You know that's kind of the way it is here. I didn’t see a whole lot of difference in it. Just ride around, try to protect your position. The car probably handled better but that was about all. I’m tickled to death to be honest with you. We were at the wrong place at the wrong time. It just depends on where you are. It’s pretty much obvious that it was pretty good for the most part but there at the end it got kind of rough as far as trying to go after it. But that’s just racing and that’s the way it is here.”

On Saturday, NASCAR Announced a rules change before “Happy Hour” in an effort to slow the cars back down after Labonte recorded a lap of 198.475 mph in the morning practice session. Coming into the event, NASCAR had mandated the use of a 1” restrictor plate to allow the drivers to have a little better throttle response during the race. Unfortunately, the Jimmy Makar led crew may have been too good for their own good as NASCAR made the decision to go down to a 15/16” plate in an effort to cut horsepower.

When asked what he thought about the possibility of the rules staying this way, Labonte responded, “I don’t know. It’s hard to say. When you’re running third with one lap to go it doesn’t make you happy. Any other race if that were to happen it would be different. The driver has no control a lot of times in what takes place for us.”

Labonte looks to make a repeat performance of his February victory at ‘The Rock’ this weekend. Be sure to watch Bobby and the Interstate Batteries Racing Team in the Pop Secret Microwave Popcorn 400 at North Carolina Speedway on Sunday, October 22nd on TNN at 11:30 PM (CST).