Race 2 Win: Sprint Cup Series Race Notes

Sprint Cup Series

Crown Royal Presents the Dan Lowry 400 - Bobby Labonte Notes

Bobby Labonte
#43 “Speed Racer”/Cheerios Dodge

NASCAR Sprint Cup Series
Crown Royal Presents the Dan Lowry 400
Richmond International Raceway
May 3, 2008

Quotes from Bobby Labonte:
“I’ve always loved racing at Richmond. For some reason it didn’t take me long to pick up on the track. I believe I sat on the pole in my second race there. It’s just a fun place to race. We could use a couple more tracks like Richmond on the schedule. You hear a lot about it being a short track that thinks it’s a speedway. That’s true. The corners are pretty fast and you have a lot of room to pass.”

“Richmond is no different than the other short tracks. You have to take care of your brakes and you need to be able to drive off the corner. With it being a night race, it’s easy for Jeff (Meendering, crew chief) to see if I’m being hard on the brakes because the rotors will glow bright red. We’ve been good on the short tracks this year, but we haven’t been able to get the finish that we deserve. We can turn that around this weekend.”

“I appreciate NASCAR allowing us to have a little extra ‘speed’ this weekend. It’s really cool to have the new Speed Racer movie on the side of the No. 43 Dodge for Richmond. Any young boy that grew up in the ‘70s watched Speed Racer. I know I did. To a kid that dreamed of growing up to be a racecar driver, that was the coolest show on television. They haven’t given me a sneak preview yet, but I’m sure I’ll check it out in the theaters.”

Bobby Labonte at Richmond International Raceway

In Labonte’s 30 visits to Richmond he has scored four top-5s and has finished within the top-10 on 10 occasions.

His best finish at the track is second and his most recent top-10 came in this race in 2005.

Of a possible 11,993 laps at Richmond International Raceway, Labonte has completed 11,814 (98.5%) including 161 laps led. His average start at the track is 16.1 and average finish is 17.2.

Labonte has scored one pole at Richmond and has started within the top-10 on 13 occasions. He qualified tenth for last year’s ‘Fall’ race.

This weekend, the #43 will sport a special paint scheme to promote the new movie, Speed Racer, which opens across the country May 9.

The paint scheme is reflective of Speed Racer’s Mach 5, the car driven by the character in both the classic 1960s animated series and the new live action family film.