A dozen former winners at the lightning-fast Atlanta Motor Speedway will try to add to their victory totals Sunday, but none of them has been more successful than Bobby Labonte.
With six Atlanta victories to his credit, he narrowly edges Bill Elliott’s five. Jeff Gordon has four wins on this track, but to put Labonte’s number in perspective, except for Gordon he has captured more than twice as many checkered flags as any other active driver. Only Dale Earnhardt Sr. (nine) and Carl Yarborough (seven) won more at Atlanta.
How likely is a Labonte win on Sunday? It’ll be tough, considering he qualified terribly: He’ll start the race from the 40th position.
But in a similar vein, no one gave him and the No. 96 Hall of Fame Racing team much of a chance coming into this season. After all, HoF struggled throughout 2008 with nearly a half-dozen different drivers behind the wheel. That’s why so many jaws have dropped this season as Labonte sits 10th in the standings after the first three races.
But Labonte isn’t surprised. The initial feeling he got, even before he climbed into an HoF race car for the first time, was enough to convince him to leave struggling Petty Enterprises for what he thought would be a surprisingly better team in 2009.
Click Here For More NASCAR Photos
“I hadn’t even sat in the race car yet to fit a seat, (yet) I was still confident knowing the faces and everything there and all the resources that are available,” Labonte said. “There (was) no doubt in my mind (about whether the team could be good).”
A strategic alliance between HoF and Yates Racing and the reunification of Labonte and former crew chief Todd Parrott sealed the deal that this would be a completely different team.
“I think we’re very fortunate that Todd and I worked together,” Labonte said. “We’ve got great equipment and great personnel, so that helps out when we’re trying to figure each other out. We already know a little bit, so that’s been a little bit of a head start for us.”
The team is coming off an impressive fifth-place finish in the Shelby 427 at Las Vegas despite suffering through a number of ups and downs. Labonte kept fighting back and wound up with what he hopes is the first of many top-fives this season.
“I’d make up a few positions and then get kind of stale,” Labonte said. “But all in all, Todd did a great job on pit calls and we just stayed out and did all the right things.”
| 
|