Labonte brothers starting up front again

LONG POND, Pa. -- There is little doubt as to which set of brothers is doing the best in NASCAR Winston Cup racing these days.

	Bobby Labonte will start fourth in Sunday's Pennsylvania 500. Credit: Autostock

Friday at Pocono Raceway, Bob Labonte's boys proved it again. Bobby Labonte qualified fourth for Sunday's Pennsylvania 500, while older brother Terry was sixth.

That's the third time this season the Labontes have both started in the top 10. They also did it at the first Pocono race, and at Richmond, where Terry won the pole.

Bobby is fourth in the Winston Cup point standings, while Terry is 16th. That pairing is easily better than the Burtons (Jeff 10th, Ward 22nd) or the Wallaces (Rusty 11th, Kenny 30th).

And the Labontes are good at Pocono, too, winning five races between them. Bobby has three victories here, while Terry has two.

On Friday, neither driver was too spectacular in practice, with Bobby especially bad. He was only 30th fastest in the two-hour session, but that's because the team mostly worked on race setup.

Late in the practice, though, crew chief Michael McSwain put a qualifying package on the car. It didn't work.

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"We ran a lot of race practice early on and had a lot of trouble because the track was under caution for a long period of time," Bobby said. "We really didn't get a lot of laps, and that put us behind for a qualifying run. When we did, we still weren't very good so we threw some stuff at it and tried it."

Before qualifying, Labonte and McSwain got together with their Joe Gibbs Racing teammates, driver Tony Stewart and crew chief Greg Zipadelli, and hammered out a new setup. While Labonte and McSwain went one direction, Stewart and Zipadelli went another.

Clearly, Labonte's setup worked better. Stewart, the winner here in June, was only 33rd fastest in qualifying.

"The only driver part of it was the input that I had in the changes," Bobby said. "It's kind of hard because you don't know exactly what it's going to do when you change a lot because the balance changes and all of that. We talked about it, made the right changes and picked up a second."

Terry picked up almost as much. He went seventh-tenths of a second faster in practice, nailing down a 168.757 mph lap. That was .055 seconds slower than Bobby's lap of 168.932 mph.

"It was a good run for us," Terry said. "We picked up a little bit, made a few changes between practice and qualifying. The guys did a great job on the car, put a good engine in it and it was a good run."

It was another in a series of good runs for Terry, who suffered through the worst season of his career in 2002, when he scored only one top-five finish and ended up 24th in the Winston Cup points standings.

	Terry Labonte will start sixth on Sunday. Credit: Autostock

This year, though, Terry and crew chief Jim Long have turned things around. Since dropping to 31st in the standings after Texas, they've has posted two top-five finishes -- matching his total from 2001 and 2002 -- and five top-10s. Terry had moved up as high as 13th in the points before slipping back three spots as the series came to Pocono.

"The team has done a great job preparing the cars," Terry said, "and we're hoping that the second half of the year is a lot better than the first half was."

If Friday is any indication, Terry could be right. About him and his brother.