Long day for both Gibbs Racing cars

FONTANA, Calif. -- Sunday’s NAPA Auto Parts 500 was a long, dreadful day for Joe Gibbs Racing as part failures prematurely eliminated both of the team's cars from contention.

	Bobby Labonte

Bobby Labonte pitted on lap 71 of 250 to repair a faulty water pump belt, forcing him to lose nine laps to the race leaders under the green flag. He eventually finished 34th, 10 laps down to race winner Jimmie Johnson.

“The water pump quit turning, so the motor got hot,” said crew chief Jimmy Makar. “That stopped the power steering belt from turning. Bobby noticed that the power steering went away and noticed that the temperature gauge was going up, so we had to come in and change all the belts.”

Tony Stewart’s day wasn’t much better. On lap 127 Stewart shot down pit road with a broken throttle linkage. The team strung the two halves together with plastic tie wraps, which somehow managed to hold together throughout the remainder of the event.

	Tony Stewart

To make matters worse, Stewart was cited for speeding on pit road and assessed a pass-through penalty. He returned to the track three laps down in 38th position and eventually surged to a 29th place finish.

Crew chief Greg Zipadelli was quite perplexed with the issue.

“This car has only been run twice,” Zipadelli said. “It’s not like something that’s been abused. This car has never been wrecked. I don’t really know. I just know that it’s pretty frustrating because this team has been doing a hell of a job.”

Labonte dropped from 17th to 20th in the championship standings, while Stewart fell from eighth to 10th.