Labonte Looses Lap Early, Finishes 26th in Dickies 500 at Texas

Carl Edwards won the 334-lap event.

Labonte started 17th and fought a tight condition early in the event. He fell back to 20th by Lap 28 when the first yellow came out for debris and during the first pit stop on Lap 30, the team was assessed a penalty for having too many crew members over the wall. Labonte was sent to the tail end of the longest line.

A long green flag run took place just past the 90-lap mark and Labonte went down one lap around Lap 145.

He never recovered, as the car continued to be tight throughout the remainder of the event. He and the No. 18 Main St. Getty/IBS of Massachusetts/Interstate Batteries Chevrolet team made several adjustments throughout the last half of the race, but could not gain their lap back.

He finished 26th, the first car one lap down.

“The guys worked hard today,” Labonte said. “We had a little problem in the pits and then we lost a lap and we couldn’t really recover. It was a tough deal, but the guys worked hard. We’ll go onto Phoenix next week. We had a good run there in the spring, so we’ll see what we can do.”

Labonte remained 25th in NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series points. He has 3,272 points and is 40 points behind 24th-place Michael Waltrip.

The next NEXTEL Cup Series event is the Checker Auto Parts 500 Nov. 13 at Phoenix International Raceway. The race begins at 3 p.m. (EST) and will be broadcast live on NBC and MRN. The day before, Labonte will drive the No. 19 SlimJim Chevrolet in the Phoenix 200 Busch Series event at Phoenix. The race starts at 3:30 p.m. (EST) and will be broadcast live on TNT and MRN.