EA Sports 500 - Bobby Labonte Notes

LABONTE HOPES THE NEW RULES PACKAGE WILL HELP AT TALLADEGA

HUNTERSVILLE, N.C. (Sept. 23, 2003) - When people talk about the type of racing at Daytona or Talladega, it's easy to imagine a pack of 43 cars stacked three-wide for 500-miles. And while it is truly exciting and breathtaking for all of the fans in attendance, as well as those at home watching on television, most of the drivers say the mental exercise of it all is just too taxing on them.

In an effort to continue to provide close side-by side racing, yet break the pack of cars up just a little bit; NASCAR announced a new rules package that will go into effect this weekend at Talladega in the EA Sports 500. The restrictor plates that fit underneath the carburetor will be increased from 7/8-inch holes to 29/32-inch holes (1/32-inch increase) and the spoiler on the Chevrolet that Bobby Labonte will drive will be raised to 7 ¼-inches. It was 6 ¾-inch at the most recent restrictor plate race we ran at Daytona in July.

"I am hoping the new package will help break up the big pack of cars a little bit," said Labonte. "Opening up the plates will give us a little more throttle response and give us the horsepower to make up for the taller spoilers we will have on the cars. We need to be able to try and pull out and pass, where in the past you just couldn't do it unless you had someone go with you. And that still may be the case, but as long as the packs of cars are not as big as they once were, then we are headed in the right direction."

"We don't need or want single-file racing, but we have to do something to get 43 cars off one another's backs and sides," he added. "Hopefully it will still be an exciting race for the fans, but we as driver's won't have to worry about our spotters telling us on the radio that we're three or sometimes four-wide out there. That's never fun."

Unlike it's sister track, Talladega is not as much of a handling track like Daytona is so the drivers and teams are still able to run pretty good with a car that might not be handling perfectly.

"It really doesn't drive anything like Daytona," admitted Labonte. "They look the same and all that, but that's about it. The corners are so much different in terms of the radius and where the bumps and humps are. And I can promise you there are a lot of bumps out there at both places. At Daytona you really do need the car to handle well, but Talladega it just seems that you can get away with a little bit more in terms of the chassis. If your car is off just a little bit at Talladega it won't hurt you near as bad."

While the overall set-up is still very important to the teams, it seems that the trick all of them are continually working on and trying to figure out is how to keep the car as low to the ground as possible, thus reducing the drag on the car. And with NASCAR continually watching what the teams are doing, it's a constant battle of keeping the rules balanced.

"It's kind of funny when you think about it," noted Labonte. "It seems that one day NASCAR announces a rule and then immediately the teams are working to trying to figure it out and what they can do with it. Everyone out there is pushing the envelope in terms of finding the gray area of the rulebook. With as many engineers as there is now in the sport, it makes sense. That's their job to interpret the rules and see what we can do with them. It's a never-ending battle. It's like a seesaw and it's constantly in motion back and forth."

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