"BOBBY LABONTE NURSES AILING PONTIAC    
HOME IN SECOND AT BRICKYARD 400"           

Published in the Johnson County (Ind.) Daily Journal, Aug. 9, 1999 ©

[*Second-place, News Writing, annual writing contest of American Auto Racing Writers and Broadcasters Association, May 2000*]

         When Bobby Labonte heard a slight cough in the engine of his Interstate Batteries Pontiac in the late stages of Saturday's Brickyard 400, he could hardly afford to pull over and call in a doctor.

         He couldn't take the time, running second to Dale Jarrett in the second biggest race on the NASCAR Winston Cup schedule, to find out if two aspirins, plenty of liquids and bed rest would cure whatever ailed his green-and-black No. 18. First, the finish line, then the 911 call.

         "I don't know what happened between our last (full) pit stop and the yellow flag," Labonte reported after nursing the sickly stock car to his second runnerup finish at the annual Brickyard fitness test, "but we developed a miss in the engine. I was flippin' switches off, the tachometer went crazy - we were really thrashin' inside the race car."

         At nearly 180 miles an hour, Labonte hardly had time to make a thorough diagnosis of what might be ailing his car, the only one that came close to challenging Jarrett for the big win Saturday. "We definitely didn't have a second-place car there at the end," the Texas-born driver said, with a shake of his head of crewcut dark hair. "We just had to hold on for the last few laps."

         Labonte's mechanical patient managed to stay alive despite the annoying hiccups somewhere inside its engine, but the undiagnosed disease made it a long drive to the nearest affordable doctor's office for Labonte -- 25 laps or so around the big Indy speedway. "I know 25 laps here are a lot longer than 25 laps at Martinsville, that's for sure," he commented, referring to a half-mile NASCAR track in Virginia, "so I was afraid of what the engine might do.

         "But we kept flipping switches, and the miss didn't seem like it stayed there for long. So, maybe we flipped enough switches off, maybe it was just a miss in a wire, you never know."

         Whatever the cause, the illness didn't claim the patient, or Labonte's next-to-best finish. "I was very thankful it went all the way because I was calling on the radio telling my crew to be ready, because I didn't think it was going to make it," Labonte said later, smiling widely like a relative receiving good news from an M.D. "Usually, a tell-tale sign is when the tachometer starts flipping around --when it does that, usually it's gonna stop."

         The only stop Labonte made was during a late yellow flag, for a few gallons of fuel and half a set of tires - and no medical consultation. Total time of his visit: 10.3 seconds. The brief stay secured his second place in the 6th rendition of the Brickyard 400.

         Not bad for a Winston Cup car that wasn't feeling well. "Second place is sometimes satisfying, and sometimes not," Labonte said, another relieved smile scrubbing up his boyish face. "We'll have to take it because it could have been a lot worse. We're not complaining about it, that's for sure."

         The 35-year-old NASCAR veteran from Corpus Christi, winner of three Winston Cup races so far this season, had run second to Jarrett nearly all day, and his prognosis for victory was optimistic until the first signs of medical troubles near the end. "We had a good race car all day long, until we developed the miss," he said. "We just couldn't quite run with the 88 (Jarrett) for the most part.

         "We did have fun running right there with him, though. We were within two car-lengths of him for the whole run."

         Labonte had no answer to the major medical question of the day: Without the misfire in his Pontiac engine, could he have challenged for the win? "I don't know," he answered, with the directness of an honest surgeon. "We'll have to go back and see how bad that miss might have been.

         "It might have just gone through the motor and out; it just sounded weird. It might have broken a valve spring or something like that."

         And, Labonte readily admitted, the catch in the throat of his powerplant wasn't the only bothersome affliction that kept him a few steps behind the winner's blue No. 88 Ford in the closing laps. "It didn't handle as good, either," the Brickyard runnerup pointed out, "so I'm not going to blame it all on a miss in the engine.

         "We just weren't hooked up as good as he was."

         Still, finishing three seconds behind Jarrett's totally fit Ford was a healthy sign for the driver of the lead entry in the racing team owned by former NFL coach Joe Gibbs. "Obviously, we're jelling," he noted. "At least we're making progress. We're racers and want to win 'em all, but we're not going to go out here and commit suicide because we finished second, either."

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 Copyright 1999 by Jerry Miller ©

 Color photo courtesy of NASCAR

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