Texas native Bobby Labonte seeks win in Dickies 500
Being a native of the Lone Star State, Bobby Labonte would like nothing more than to win Sunday's Dickies 500 NASCAR Sprint Cup race at Texas Motor Speedway.
Not only would a victory be the first for Petty Enterprises since 1999, it would be Labonte's first since winning the season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway in 2003.
"I can’t wait for the day that we can get to victory lane there," said Labonte, who hails from Corpus Christi, Texas. "The [Texas] track is so similar to Charlotte and Atlanta and I love both of those places. I think it’s just a matter of time before we break into the win column."
Although the 2000 Cup champion hasn't finished in the top five at Texas since finishing third in the spring race there that same year, he does have three top-five and five top-10 finishes in 15 career starts.
"We’ve had good cars at Texas and we’ve run well there in several races, but we’re still looking for that first win." Labonte said. "This weekend would be a great time to pick that up.”
Labonte is currently 20th in the series standings, and in 33 starts this season, the driver of the No. 43 Dodge has two top-10 finishes. His best finish this season was sixth in the Amp Energy 500 at Talladega Superspeedway on Oct. 5.
Despite finishing 26th in last Sunday's Pep Boys 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway, Labonte said his team might finally have hit on something when it comes to racing at intermediate tracks such as the Fort Worth facility.
"We weren’t happy with our performance at Atlanta last weekend. The car was just never in the track. Texas is very similar to Atlanta, just with a little more grip," Labonte said.
"Normally we would take setups that are very close to each other to these tracks, but we are going with something else for Texas. Our engineering department has a lot of good ideas, and they have been working well with our crew chiefs to develop some fresh setups that we can use at Texas and Homestead.”
