Weekend That Was: AMS

Sometimes you just have to go with the proverbial gut feeling. The ol' instinct.

Sometimes you have to pick the underdog, against all odds.

After all, where's the glamour in predicting that Jeff Gordon or Jimmie Johnson is going to win a Nextel Cup race week after week after week -- with a little Tony Stewart or Carl Edwards thrown in now and again for a smidgen of variety?

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So it was that this reporter predicted a breakthrough victory Sunday for driver Bobby Labonte in the Pep Boys 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway (see Joe's pick). Sure, the risk for hundreds of derogatory e-mails was great. I can see them stacking up in the ol' inbox now:

What are you, stupid?

Didn't Bobby last win in 2003?

Don't you know he drives for Petty Enterprises, a team that hasn't won a race since 1999?

The answers to the questions above are, well, sometimes, yes and yes. But Labonte has been showing signs of life lately, as has Petty Enterprises. Plus Labonte has won at Atlanta six times, including snaring one of his two wins there in 2003, the last year he won (he also won the season finale at Homestead that season).

And finally, Chase or no Chase, there are times when it would be nice just to see someone else win.

Nothing against Gordon and Johnson and all the good folks at Hendrick Motorsports, who are having a terrific time while dominating the rest of the Nextel Cup garage pretty much this entire season. But with Johnson winning again at Atlanta -- for the second week in a row and the series-high eighth time this season -- time is running short for anyone else to stand up and be counted this season.

And before the e-mail train tramples the pick too much, Labonte was running in a respectable 10th when something on his No. 43 let loose and sent him barreling into the wall on Lap 162. That eventually relegated him to a 41st-place finish, extending the winless streak for Petty Enterprises to 308 races.

Man, if he could have gotten up front and pulled it off, what a brilliant pick it would have been!

But the fact that he didn't brought to mind a conversation that myself and about 10 of my closest friends in the media had with Labonte one weekend earlier prior to the Subway 500 at Martinsville Speedway. There, Labonte talked openly about how difficult it is to get to Victory Lane these days when you aren't part of one of the super teams like Hendrick, Roush Fenway Racing, Richard Childress Racing, Penske Racing South or even one of those on the fringe of taking the next step to get to that status (Chip Ganassi Racing or Gillett Evernham Motorsports) or trying seemingly in vain to maintain the reputation that they remain there (Dale Earnhardt Inc.).

"It's hard to get back to Victory Lane. There's no doubt that it's hard," said Labonte, the 2000 series champion who owns 21 career victories and earned them all while with Joe Gibbs Racing, which he left after the 2005 season to join Petty Enterprises. "As a competitor, you always want to run better. You can easily say you're not happy with the results. But obviously going into this we knew we were building as we go. That's pretty tough."

As far as winning races against the behemoths, it's beginning to look impossible. The 12 drivers who made the Chase for the Nextel Cup have accounted for all but four victories this season -- which explains why they are in the Chase. But of the four victories posted by non-Chasers this season, even those were registered by super team members or, in the case of rookie Juan Montoya, at least a super team wannabe with a three-car operation at Ganassi Racing (the other non-Chase victories were scored by Jamie McMurray and Greg Biffle of Roush Fenway, and Casey Mears of Hendrick). (Continued)