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1999 Stats
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After qualifying twentieth, Bobby Labonte was stuck in the middle of the
pack at the start of the MBNA Gold 400. Labonte wasn't able to move up throughout
the field, as he had an extremely tight car. Then, when Bobby was about to be lapped,
a caution came out. The crew adjusted on Labonte's Pontiac, but it didn't
help the performance of the car. Bobby would hang around 23rd position until
he went a lap down. "Early on," Labonte said, "I couldn't pass a soul. I
pushed to the wall. I clobbered the wall. I should've lost a lap, and I
did." Then, Bobby's crew finally got the car working well, and he began to
move up through the field. From 17th position, Labonte caught the leaders
and regained his lap. Being the fastest car on the track, Bobby then charged
up through the field, working his way up to 3rd with 50 laps to go. A caution
would come out then and the leaders would pit. Bobby made an air pressure
adjustment and came out in third. But, during the caution, Labonte felt something
wrong with his tires, so he came back in and changed his tires. One of the
tires was going flat, and Bobby would've lost a lap had the caution not been
out. From the sixth position Labonte set out to win the race, but then he would
lose a cylinder, changing his goal from winning to surviving. Still,
Bobby amazingly moved up a position to finish fifth, and is now 3rd in the points,
7 behind second-place Mark Martin.
"It's just one of those deals right there at the end. That caution came out
and then we had a flat tire right after that. We got four more tires and then
dropped a cylinder in it. We really don't know what it is yet, it just went
away. It's very fortunate that we finished, so luck was on our side on that
part of it. But, unfortunately, we weren't able to show what we had there
at the end. We were the fastest car, but we were a lap down for a long
time. We made it up and the car drove real good, the car was really good at the
end. It was terrible at the beginning. We made a lot of changes to get it
better and, for whatever reason, it came to life after that. It was a good
day for us, and we still finished 5th on 7 cylinders."
"We didn't start off the day right, so it wasn't like we led 389 laps and
lost it at the end."