Hard-fought effort makes Labonte runner-up

MARTINSVILLE, Va. -- The first time Jeff Gordon saw Bobby Labonte, the No. 24 was getting close to Labonte's back bumper.

Of course, Gordon was the leader, and Labonte was running at the back of the pack. Sure, you have to be patient at Martinsville Speedway, but Labonte said he was almost too patient.

Then came the call on the radio.

"The leader's behind you."

Uh, oh.

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Labonte figured he better pick up the pace a little bit. Boy, did he pick up the pace.

Instead of getting lapped and struggling all day, Labonte moved from his 39th starting spot Sunday to finish second in the Virginia 500. He was hardly struggling, too, racing hard for many laps down the stretch to try to hold Gordon off for the victory.

When Labonte went to Victory Lane to congratulate Gordon on a hard-fought race, Gordon told him, 'Man, I thought we had you a lapped down at one time.'"

"That says a lot about Bobby and his race team," Gordon said. "I gave him a hard time after the race. I got inside of him to put him a lap down, and a I remember when I saw him behind me late in the race, I said, 'Is he on the lead lap?'"

Why, yes he was. Labonte's car was stellar on long green-flag runs, so he took advantage of 236 green-flag laps in the first half of the race.

Then, on lap 438, Labonte was in the lead. Crew chief Michael McSwain decided to change only right-side tires under a caution, putting Labonte up front.

	Bobby Labonte was looking for his second career short-track victory. Credit: Autostock

"Fatback made a great call by taking two. He asked me what I wanted, track position or tires, and I said, 'Can I have a little bit of both.' So he gave me two tires, which got us track position also.

"I know we couldn't have passed them if we would've restarted fifth because our car wasn't as good on four tires all day long on restarts."

Everyone else changed four, and when the race restarted with 57 laps to go, Labonte looked like a sitting duck. Especially with Gordon, who has a sparkling record at the paperclip-shaped track, sitting in second place.

But Gordon wasn't able to dart around Labonte, who was making life difficult by cutting Gordon almost no slack in the turns. The two raced-side-by side for several laps, with Labonte using the high line to pinch Gordon low in the turns.

Gordon settled into second place for a few laps, but with 16 to go, Gordon made another inside move. This time, Gordon used a little bit of a bump-and-run and was gone.

"The two tires, we had a lot of laps to go on them -- a lot of hard laps," Labonte said. "We held Jeff off as long as we could. ... I wish we had had fewer laps to run after we got the two tires. We rubbed a little bit, but that was hard racing. That was good, clean fun."

VIDEO CLIPS Victory Lane Play video B. Labonte ends up second Play video Earnhardt Jr. leads the most laps Play video J. Burton scores his first top-five of 2003 Play video Wallace, Earnhardt Jr, and Gordon battle for the lead Play video Gordon gets off to quick start Play video

While there were a lot of post-race questions as to what is acceptable while racing for the lead, Labonte said he would have done the same thing.

"If I would have been second, and Jeff was in front of me with two tires, I would have raced him as hard as I could as clean as I could," Labonte said. "You race the people as hard as they'd race you."

Labonte certainly wasn't done after losing the lead, but Gordon did have fresher tires. It would have taken a mistake on Gordon's part.

"After he got by me, I knew it was going to be hard to get back by him -- unless he slipped on a banana peel or something," Labonte said. "I was just holding him. I ran the high groove, and he couldn't get as good a bite on the bottom. My two tires weren't going to be as good as long."

Still, to finish second after starting so far back rights the Joe Gibbs Racing ship. Labonte spun at Texas and finished 37th, and crashed in The Big Wreck at Talladega and ended up 32nd.

"I'd like to think we've been competitive week in and week out," Labonte said. "We had two bad weekends, so we needed a good rally today. Today was a good day. We take it one race at a time."