NASCAR WCUP: Bobby Labonte has 'great race' at Rockingham

Posted By Terry Callahan
Motorsports Editor, The Auto Channel

BOBBY LABONTE, NO. 18 INTERSTATE BATTERIES PONTIAC GRAND PRIX:

(ON THE RACE) "It was a great race for us. There at the end we just got a good run on him and got the momentum going and everything. I got up on the outside of him a little bit. Both of us were slipping and sliding with that many laps on our tires, and I got up in the fence a little bit on the right rear. I still had a little momentum to come back, but it's hard to get a good bite up off the corner. But it was still a great run for us today. "I just want to say one thing. Last year at this race, [Dale] Earnhardt finished second to me, and he came by before the race started then and told me what to do. It seemed like it helped me. It didn't help me win today, but it did help me get to second."

(ON STEVE PARK WINNING) "He had a good car all day. There was no doubt about it. I thought at the beginning of the race that he was going to be a 'hot rod' all day, and he was. Congratulations to those guys. It was a great run for them. They needed that. I sure would have liked to have gotten him there at the end, but I came up a little short."

(ARE YOU HAPPY TO GET THIS RACE BEHIND YOU AFTER A TOUGH WEEK?) "We've got 36 more to go. Each race is just one more down and we've got a lot more to go. If you're thinking about this week because of what happened last week to Dale [Earnhardt], it's going to be tough every week. We're still going to feel the same."

(ON THE SAFETY DEVICE HE WORE TODAY) "It worked just fine. I need to make it a little bit better. But for the first time out - I didn't even try it until yesterday during the race - it worked just fine."

(DID YOU WAIT TOO LONG TO MAKE YOUR RUN ON STEVE PARK?) "No, really I couldn't [have started sooner]. I picked up two seconds there in a short while and I got to a certain point, and that was the best I could do. If I would have tried any harder two laps before I think I probably would have lost time. This is one of those tracks that you actually have to slow down to go fast. My charge wasn't planned two laps too late. It was planned when my car was right to go. His car gave up there at the end. We saw that earlier, but he was definitely the fastest car for 95 percent of the day."

(ON BRUSHING THE WALL IN THE CLOSING LAPS) "It was a deal where we really didn't get together -- me and him (Steve Park). We just got sideways - both of us - and I drifted up and just brushed the wall a little bit with the right rear. I didn't really lose much momentum because I was back on the outside of him [going] into one, and then dove back underneath him off of two, so I really didn't lose momentum. If I had stayed there, then both of us would have wrecked, unfortunately. But I knew that we both had to give a little bit right there, and we both did. If I had been beside him, it would have been different. But I wasn't far enough up beside him to really make it very risky at all."

(WAS A SECOND-PLACE RUN "GOOD MEDICINE" FOR YOU TODAY?) "Definitely. We're definitely excited that we came back to a second place finish. We didn't have a good finish last weekend. It's kind of ironic, but I never even thought about where we finished all week from last weekend. "A lot of people had talked about whether another day was going to drag this out. But really this was no different than any other rain day. Our thoughts and prayers are with Dale, Jr., and Teresa and all the people at DEI. And one thing I haven't heard is Martha Earnhardt. I think I met her like 18 years ago. I haven't seen her in a while, but I have talked to her a lot before. Those people there - we're not going to forget about it. We're just going to another weekend.

"It's good that we got this race over with, but next weekend our thoughts are still going to be with them because this is not a situation that we're going to forget."

(MORE ON THE SAFETY DEVICE HE WORE THIS WEEKEND) "I just had something on me that Mike Skinner and Elliott Sadler had and I tried it today. It was something that Bobby Hutchens actually had been working with somebody else on and he had an extra one. Yesterday, I tried it and I tried it again today. I'm going to go tomorrow and work on some stuff. We'll probably talk to Jeff (Gordon) before we get out there (to Las Vegas) and maybe get him one if he wants one."

(HOW DID YOU LIKE THE DEVICE?) "It was pretty good. They've tested it in sled tests, so I felt pretty confident with it. It's just a matter of working with it, making it a little bit more comfortable to fit my application with some stuff that we can make on the fire suit to be better - just so it won't take five minutes to get in the car and all that stuff. So far, I give it a 'thumbs up.' It's been a great deal."

(DID YOU ADJUST ON THE CAR TODAY OR WAIT FOR THE RACE TO COME TO YOU?) "We adjusted on it a little bit, but not really a whole lot. We adjusted tire pressure all day. Sometimes it would be a little tight, sometimes it would be a little loose. We really didn't adjust on it that much. We played with that air pressure a little bit and that was about all."

(WHERE DO YOU AND THE OTHER DRIVERS GO FROM HERE ON SAFETY ISSUES?) "What Jeff [Gordon] said was perfect. There is no doubt. We don't want people going off in different directions. We're all going to work together with all the teams -- if we can -- with NASCAR -- if we can - with whoever. I think the positives are that we're all going to work forward. Our team and everybody else's team is going to work together. We're all excited about things of the future." (SHOULD DRIVERS STEP UP THEIR ROLE IN THAT PROCESS?) "I guess we all probably need to do better than we ever have in the past. I thought my car was pretty safe, and after looking at it we changed a couple things on it. "I think all the drivers are probably looking at all that stuff. There's not doubt that we're probably going to talk about that a little bit more. If we do that, then we'll definitely be talking and going in the right direction."

(ON BEATING DALE EARNHARDT A YEAR AGO HERE AND LOSING TO A DEI CAR HERE THIS YEAR) "Those guys are well-deserving. Last year, Steve [Park], all of DEI, the race team - they were all going up the ladder. They were making great race cars, they were running great races, they were leading laps and stuff like that. Today, it's ironic, but it does my heart good to see them win. I'll take second place when I know that we couldn't get him. Obviously, if we could have gotten him we would have, but we couldn't get him. "I stuck my '3' hat out the window at him and he stuck his '3' hat out at me after the race was over. That's what it's all about. We gave it our best shot. We made a great race out of it. That's what it was. It was a great race. We did that as best we could. What [Dale] Earnhardt told me last year helped me this year to finish second. It didn't help me win, but it helped me finish second."

(ON STEVE PARK SAYING THAT HE WAS GLAD IT WAS YOU HE WAS RACING AT THE END) "That makes me feel good. That's for sure. I've raced Steve for quite some time. Like I said, towards the end of last year we got to race him a lot more. Their team was coming on from 'day one' last year. It's just great to see that with all the hard work that they did because they didn't do it on anything else but hard work.

"It's the same feeling from me. I'm glad it was Steve Park. We were able to rub a little bit, but we didn't do anything wrong. We did everything right. We did some hard racing. He was driving his fanny off just like I was driving mine off, and that's what makes it worthwhile. We both ended up smiling at the end of the day because we know that we both gave it our best shot."

(WHERE DID STEVE PARK BLOCK YOU?) "Really, we came off turn four and I got into the wall just because he started losing grip and we all just went up towards the wall. That wasn't a block. It was just that we both had to check up a little bit to not get into each other. That was about all. We didn't do any blocking here."

(ON RACING PARK CLEAN COMING OFF THE CORNER) "If I had been wheel to wheel with him that would have been different. But I had my left front on his right rear, so I wasn't far enough up to make a good enough challenge. At this racetrack you use up all the racetrack up off of turn four and we just had all we could do. I came off turn two and we gave each other plenty of room, and I got up beside him there. I let up a little bit, but only because we're trying to protect ourselves. I didn't have enough of a challenge to not let up. If he hadn't have slid up there and I hadn't let off, maybe I could have kept going. But the fact that I knew that there was a shot that we were both going to lose grip, I just knew that I had to be careful there. It was all good racing. That's all it was."

(MORE DETAILS ON THE SAFETY DEVICE THAT YOU WORE TODAY) "It's a restraint that Mike Skinner and Elliott Sadler used at Daytona. It was the same type as that. Bobby Hutchens gave it to me. He and somebody else had been working on it.

"It just fastens around you, fastens to your helmet and goes down to your submarine belt between your legs. It works similar to a HANS device, just in a different fashion. They have tested it. Jimmy [Makar] asked them if they've been through a sled test with it and compared it to the HANS and stuff. We talked about it and he had an extra one, so we decided to use it. We modified it a little bit and made it work."

Text Provided By Al Larsen

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