Labonte takes aim at ending season in top 15
While Bobby Labonte admits that his Petty Enterprises team needs to use the final 10 NASCAR Sprint Cup races to get prepared for next season, he also has some goals left to attain this year.
Labonte enters this weekend's Sylvania 300 at New Hampshire Motor Speedway 20th in the standings, but he wants to gain significant ground before season's end.
“These last 10 races are going to be important for everyone on the No. 43 Dodge [team]," he said. "Obviously we want to work on preparing for next season, but we also have some goals that we want to accomplish. Each year that I’ve been at Petty Enterprises we have improved on the point’s finish from the previous year. Last year we finished 18th in points.
"We are in a very good position to improve on that this year. There are a lot of tracks left on the schedule where we could easily turn in a few top-10 finishes and challenge for wins. If we can do that, we can fight our way inside the top 15.”
Labonte is currently 357 points behind the driver in 15th, Red Bull Racing's Brian Vickers.
He sees this weekend's race as a chance to gain some ground. He started second and finished 10th in this event earlier this season and is hoping to build on that performance.
"The first race at New Hampshire was probably the best all-around race that we’ve had this year," Labonte said. "The car was fast in qualifying and we started on the outside of the front row. The race didn’t play out like we wanted it to, but we were still able to get a top-10 finish. A carbon-copy of that weekend would be huge for us this week.
"We could pick up a lot of points, but it would also go a long way in establishing some consistency for us that will hopefully carry to the end of the year.”
