Food City 500 - Terry Labonte Notes

'5' IMPROVES QUALIFYING EFFORT: With the first short-track race of the year coming up this weekend at Bristol, Kellogg's Racing hopes to continue its improvement in qualifying. Terry Labonte's 26th-place starting position for the March 21 event at Darlington (S.C.) Raceway was his best in five races this year and the two-time champion has had good success in qualifying at Bristol. He's started on the front row six times, including a pole position in 1987.

MAKING UP GROUND: Despite his 19th-place finish at Darlington, Labonte had his best points day of the young season -- gaining 36 on series leader Matt Kenseth. Labonte is 21st in the standings, 214 points behind Kenseth and 107 behind 10th-place Elliott Sadler. Only drivers in NASCAR's Top 10 and others within 400 points of first place after 26 events of this year's 36-race schedule have been run will be eligible to participate in the "Chase for the Championship" over the final 10 weeks of the season.

LABONTE AT BRISTOL: At Bristol, Labonte has two victories and four runner-up finishes, most recently to teammate Jeff Gordon in 1998.

ALL ALONE: Through the first five races of the 2004 schedule, Labonte is the only driver who has finished in a higher position than he started in each event.

STREAK NOW 47 RACES: Labonte is the lone Hendrick Motorsports driver without a DNF (did not finish) through the first five races of the season. By running to the end of the March 28 event at Darlington, Labonte extended his series-high streak of consecutive races without a DNF to 47. The last time he failed to complete a race was in October 2002 at Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway. The modern-era record is 56 in a row, set by Gordon in 2001-02.

HENDRICK AT BRISTOL: Car owner Rick Hendrick has seven career victories at Bristol, tying him with Richard Childress and Roger Penske for third on the all-time list. Junior Johnson is first with 20 wins, while Holman-Moody ranks second with nine.

LABONTE REMEMBERS TEXAS WIN: This Sunday marks the five-year anniversary of Labonte's 21st career victory -- a stirring triumph at his "home track" of Texas Motor Speedway. On March 28, 1999, Labonte out-gunned Dale Jarrett down the stretch to take the checkered flag in what he's called one of the biggest wins of his career.

STILL GOING: Labonte has now gone 20 races without the need of a provisional starting position, his longest such streak since he put 24 straight races together in 1998.

TERRY LABONTE, DRIVER OF THE NO. 5 KELLOGG'S CHEVROLETS: (ON LOOKING FOR HIS FIRST TOP-10 FINISH OF 2004.) "We don't have the new tire and the new rules completely figured out yet. We're getting closer and I think we've learned some things in the past couple races. We're testing at Texas (March 23-24) and that'll be a big help to us."

LABONTE: (ON ONE PARTICULAR AREA OF CONCERN.) "Right now, we don't have the geometry quite right on the front end of our cars. The tires have responded differently than what we expected. But I think we're pretty close on where we need to go from here. The two tracks coming up (Bristol and Texas) have been good tracks for us in the past and we're looking at this part of the schedule to make some gains in the point standings."