Bobby Labonte: Sirius 400 recap

BROOKLYN, Mich. -- 'So close, but yet so far' seems to be a fitting motto for Bobby Labonte and the Interstate Batteries Racing Team lately as Labonte scored his fourth second-place finish of the season in the Sirius Satellite 400 at Michigan Speedway yesterday.

Running in the top-10 all day long, Labonte mounted a valiant charge with 30 or so laps to go, but came up just a little short as he finished 0.774 seconds behind race winner Kurt Busch

"We were gaining on him (Busch) - just half a tenth a lap," said Labonte. "But gaining on him and passing him is one thing. I don't think it made that much difference. On the restart, I made a run on him on the outside going into (turn) three. But I just drove in there too far. I thought it would stick, but it didn't stick good enough.

"It was the best shot I had and the only shot. After that I had to get behind him and make sure I didn't get passed for second.

After starting on the pole, Labonte quickly settled into the middle of the top-10 where he remained for the majority of the day. Battling a 'loose entry and tight off' condition in the car, Labonte and crew chief Michael McSwain continued working on the car every chance they got.

Small changes during every pit stop were helping, but not hitting the nail on the head for Labonte. That is until the last pit stop. Making a slight air pressure change seemed to make all the difference in the world, as it was evident on the track when Labonte starting passing cars at will making his way back to the front of the pack.

"We didn't have a second place car there at the middle of the race, so the guys did a great job on pit stops and pit strategy staying out and changing on the pit stops to get the car freed up to my liking," explained Labonte. "Track position was the big thing (at the end). The guys gave me that.

"We had a good racecar for a few laps and then we kind of gave up some speed there. We battled pretty hard there all day. We were not very good. A lot of guys were better. The caution flags fell our way. We made some good adjustments that last time and got it to where it turned good enough to where I liked it and didn't feel like I was going to wreck at the same time."

Over the last seven races, Labonte has finished in the top-three six times and moved from 15th in the point standings to fourth place where he sits now. After suffering a disappointing 17th place finish last week in Pocono, Labonte and the team worked very hard this week to get back to the front of the pack and try and start a new streak.

"We did stumble a little last week, but we qualified on the pole on Friday and yesterday in practice we had the fast lap," Labonte said. "We didn't have the car we needed for long runs and we knew that, and we worked hard changing stuff on it this morning that we'd talked about last night and again today, we didn't have the best car throughout the day.

"But when it counted at the end, we had a good car on a restart, passed some guys, got some track position out of it. We were able to hold on."

"I'm a little disappointed we finished second, in a way, but every weekend,

it's hard to know exactly what you're going to end up with at the end of the

day," he continued. "There are guys all over the place who are running good

all the time, and there's a lot of competition out there. My guys put in a

great effort, never giving up. For a while there, we were almost half a lap

down. They never gave up, we never gave up together. We made a lot of

changes, kept digging and digging, so to get back in the top two like we did

today is a great effort by them. After last weekend, we didn't finish that

good, and it's pretty humbling whenever you think you'll run good at a

place, but sometimes you can't. It's great to come home with a great finish

even though you don't win."