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NASCAR WCUP: Bobby Labonte happy to start up front for title surge

11 November 2000

Posted By Terry Callahan
Motorsports Editor, The Auto Channel

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

"My lap was obviously about like it was in practice. The car was about the same. I think if anything I just might not have gotten as much out of it as I should have. That's the only thing. Other than that, it was pretty good. "Actually we started third last year, too, so that's kind of ironic. Maybe it's a good omen or bad - I'm not sure which. But we were happy with third today. We definitely would have liked to have seen a first, but we'll take a third on any day that we can. Third is a great place to start here. It's a tough track to pass on. I feel like we've got a great race team and a great race car, so hopefully we can accomplish what we want to accomplish Sunday."

(DO YOU FEEL GOOD ABOUT YOUR CAR FOR SUNDAY?) "Yeah. We tested here a couple weeks ago and it was pretty good. Last year we gave up a little bit on the long runs - after about 30 laps or so - but hopefully we can get that worked out this year and hope for the best."

(ARE YOU FEELING ANY PRESSURE GOING INTO SUNDAY?) "I don't think really any more than the pressure we put on ourselves to be competitive and run good, week in and week out. We know we have a job to do and we want to do the best we can at it. There are a lot of scenarios for the weekend. But the best scenario we can do is just do like we have been to this point and hope everything goes right."

(HOW BAD WOULD YOU LIKE TO CLINCH THE TITLE ON SUNDAY?) "Our intention is to run good again, and if we do like we have been, we can definitely wrap up the Winston Cup championship. But we have to do what we have set out to do all year long and that's to be competitive week in and week out, and lead laps, lead races and be competitive at the end of the race.

"You can ask yourself the same question. If you're in my shoes, you definitely want to wrap it up last weekend, but you couldn't do that. So, this weekend? Yes, and then if it doesn't happen we want to do it next weekend. But the sooner the better for us. Inside our race team, that's what we want to do. We want to be able to do it as soon as you can, just for the fact that it would be fun."

Text Provided By Al Larsen

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