Insider's View: Bobby Labonte

One of the biggest changes the Winston Cup Series has undergone in 2003 can be found in the inspection line.

NASCAR has really stepped up the intensity in inspection this year, both in pre-race and throughout the entire weekend.

	Bobby Labonte

It's actually changed so much, in fact, that it's affecting the way teams approach each race weekend.

There are so many more templates, they're looking so much closer, they've got more measurements, and they're way more picky.

Will it slack off? I don't know. Doubt it. John Darby and his guys are taking no prisoners. It doesn't matter who you are - if it's not right, you don't race until it is.

It's kind of frustrating in a way, but it's good in a way, too, because it's basically tougher to tweak on all the little this' and that's that everyone used to tweak on.

That's why it takes so long to go through inspection. Luckily they've had rain.

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They had a Thursday at Rockingham and rain in Las Vegas, so they were able to take their time looking over every detail on the cars.

But if we get somewhere and they only have four hours to get through all that, are they really going to be as hard on us as they have been the past two or three races?

With the cars being as equal as NASCAR says they are, and with the inspection process being like it is, the only thing that's a concern is if there's an oversight of some kind on somebody's part, because it is such a difficult regimen now to go through inspection.

If one person ends up with something that not everybody else has, it's possible that he has something you won't be able to overcome with springs, shocks, swaybars, wedge, trackbar, and all the other stuff you usually change to make up for where you're lacking, because the margin of being off a little bit and being able to gain it back is getting lower and lower.

Life on the road  NASCAR.com's Marty Smith was granted exceptional access to Bobby Labonte's life outside of the track, which is even more nomadic than you might imagine.

That's the only bad thing about it: that the officials have to go through it every week and we've got to do it right every week.

And if somebody gets something through there that someone else can't, you won't be able to make up for it.

You just try to get by with as much as you can. As far as the rules go, you go to the extreme on everything. But I know you can't go too far.

You better not be on the other side of it because they're not going to allow that to happen.

Before, they might slap you a little bit, but now you've got to dead right on. That's a big deal. That's one thing you have to be prepared for.

You have to come with the mindset that if you have something wrong, if you don't get through there, you'll spend all day making it right because they're not going to let you through unless it's absolutely perfect template-wise.