Coca-Cola 600 - Terry Labonte Notes

LABONTE STARTS 19TH ALL-STAR RACE: When Terry Labonte took the green flag to start last weekend's NASCAR NEXTEL All-Star Challenge, he set a record by starting his 19th all-star race. The two-time champion had been tied with Bill Elliott for most starts in the special non-points winners-only event, but Elliott is running a limited schedule this season and did not enter the 2004 Challenge. Labonte finished 14th Saturday night in the No. 5 Kellogg's Chevy.

SEVEN-RACE STRETCH PIVOTAL FOR '5': This weekend's 600-mile NEXTEL Cup event is the first of seven consecutive points races that will lead to the final scheduled off-weekend of the season. With good reason, Labonte is looking at this stretch as an opportunity to climb back toward NASCAR's Top 10. His average finish over this same seven-race span last year was 13th, a full seven spots better than his current 2004 average.

LABONTE AT LOWE'S: In 51 career starts at Lowe's Motor Speedway, Labonte has 18 top-10 finishes -- including a victory in 1996 -- and more than $2.2 million in winnings. He has been running at the finish of his last 10 starts on the 1.5-mile oval. Labonte's last DNF at Lowe's came in the fall race of 1998.

LABONTE'S RIDE: Labonte's best finish of the 2004 season thus far has been seventh, on May 2 at California Speedway. Kellogg's Racing will have that same car -- Chassis No. 286 -- entered in this weekend's 600-miler. In addition to California, the car has been raced this year at North Carolina Speedway, where it finished 17th, and Darlington (S.C.) Raceway (19th).

RALLY TIME: With 11 races completed this season, Labonte is close to the pace he set last year when a late-season rally lifted him into 10th place in the final standings. He was 18th at this point in 2003, just two spots better than his current position entering Sunday's race. Labonte has advanced four places in the last two races and trails 19th-place Robby Gordon by just four points heading into this weekend.

'1-2' ANNIVERSARY: Labonte and his brother Bobby have finished one-two on three occasions in their careers. This weekend marks the nine-year anniversary of the first such finish. On May 28, 1995, Bobby won the May race at Lowe's Motor Speedway, beating Terry to the checkered flag by more than six seconds. Other one-two finishes for the Labontes came at Michigan International Speedway later that year (Bobby) and at Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway in 1997 (Terry).

TERRY LABONTE, DRIVER OF THE NO. 5 KELLOGG'S CHEVROLETS: (ON GETTING BACK INTO THE CHAMPIONSHIP RACE.) "For all the struggles we've had so far this season, we look up to see that we're really not that far from where we ought to be. We do need to put four or five good races together now that we're heading toward the middle of the year.

"After Charlotte, the three tracks coming up (Dover, Pocono, Michigan) are tracks where we made breakthroughs last season by running as well as I think we ever had at those places. And we've got some test dates coming up that'll help us on the road course in Sonoma (Calif.), so I see more positives than negatives as we get ready for Charlotte."