Labonte battles back from mishap to finish third

LONG POND, Pa. -- Bobby Labonte was penitent after Sunday's Pocono 500 after he scored a comeback third-place finish at Pocono Raceway.

A mishap with an oil line on Labonte's No. 18 Chevrolet coated Pocono's 2.5-mile triangular oval and caused an accident that wrecked the cars of Sterling Marlin and Scott Wimmer.

At 11 laps, the caution was the longest of the day. A total of 11 cautions used up 56 of 200 laps and underscored a day in which NASCAR struggled procedurally.

"We had an oil line drag the racetrack and we caused a caution," Labonte said. "Sorry about that, being it (cautions) was a big topic of the day."

POCONO Jimmie Johnson celebrates his ninth career Cup win Play video Jeremy Mayfield is pleased with his runner-up finish at Pocono Play video Kenseth and Harvick tangle, Johnson wins under caution Play video Ryan Newman is angry at Robby Gordon after wrecking Play video Wallace hits Waltrip from behind on lap 168 Play video Wimmer slips on some oil bringing out the fifth caution Play video  •  Unofficial Results  •  Unofficial Standings

Immediately after the race, Labonte's crew chief, Michael McSwain, said he had not had a chance to look at the car to determine the exact cause of the malady.

But he, along with the rest of the Joe Gibbs Racing crew, was basking in the satisfaction of their fourth top-five finish in their last seven starts, which unofficially has the team in sixth in the standings -- two spots better than the eighth place they came into the weekend in.

Labonte was most pleased about the race rebound that came in the wake of 13th and 25th place finishes, at Lowe's Motor Speedway and Dover International Speedway, respectively.

"We were pretty bad last weekend," Labonte said. "This weekend we were able to come back and regroup from that."

Labonte started only 17th and battled for most of the day with his car's set-up. But he said his crew took a lot of positives out of the day, including leading a single lap during a mid-race green flag pit sequence.

"We made some changes this morning before the race -- we still didn't hit it right but we have a great bunch of guys," Labonte said. "They were able to tune on the car correctly after the race started (and) it worked out that we were able to adjust on it.

"I think it was savvy on the guys in the pits' part to make adjustments in the right direction and communication to go along that way (and) that's what helped us out today."

Labonte fell as low in the rundown as 30th after 40 of 200 laps and was not in the top 10 until about lap 160.

Labonte said he could hardly believe his fortune, which put him in a more comfortable position, despite being 301 points behind series leader Dale Earnhardt Jr.

"I figured that we were pretty lucky that we ended up where we did," Labonte said, "after what happened with the oil line, what happened with the set-up to begin with and some circumstances throughout the race that we were able to come back and do it different."

Despite the comeback, Labonte said he couldn't imagine being able to threaten race winner Jimmie Johnson or even second place finisher Jeremy Mayfield -- but he enjoyed the show.

"I wasn't going to be close enough to them to get either one of them (because) Jimmie had a fast racecar all day (and) Jeremy did, too," Labonte said. "I just was fortunate enough for the latter half of the race to get my car better and battle with them.

"It was exciting to watch them (because) those guys went at it pretty hard. I was pulling away from, the guys behind me (and) they were pulling away from me a little bit.

"Those two guys in the race were really fast."