Labonte avoids disaster in uneventful final practice

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- Drivers had three rules in mind while heading for the track for Saturday morning's final Daytona 500 practice session: make sure the equipment is ready to go the distance, get the car to handle comfortably and don't hit anything.

Bobby Labonte nearly broke Rule No. 3.

Running on the low side of a small pack 15 minutes into Happy Hour, Labonte's Chevrolet was bumped by the Toyota of Scott Speed coming out of Turn 4 and sent sideways toward the infield wall at 180 mph. Thanks to a combination of driver skill, the shark fin and a little bit of luck, Labonte narrowly avoided disaster.

Daytona 500

Happy Hour Speeds

Pos.	Driver	Speed
1.	Jeff Burton	195.194
2.	Kevin Harvick	194.641
3.	Marcos Ambrose	194.376
4.	David Reutimann	194.322
5.	Matt Kenseth	194.267
6.	Kyle Busch	193.848
7.	Sam Hornish Jr.	193.744
8.	Regan Smith	193.673
9.	Juan Montoya	193.586
10.	Denny Hamlin	193.399

• Final | Prac. 3 | Prac. 2

The No. 71 Chevy came within a few feet of the concrete before Labonte was able to regain control, harmlessly spin it back toward the entrance to pit road and roll it back to the garage area with only cosmetic damage and four flat tires. Speed had similar damage around the left rear wheel well, as one of his crewmen quickly began tapping it out with a small hammer.

Thankfully, the rest of the field had few heart-stopping moments for the 85-minute session. Richard Childress teammates Jeff Burton, Kevin Harvick and Clint Bowyer went right to the top of the speed charts early in the session, and Harvick and Bowyer both parked soon after, satisfied with their rides.

Bowyer ran just 11 laps, but was especially pleased with his No. 33 Chevy after needing to go to a backup car before Thursday's qualifying races.

"I was really worried about the backup car," Bowyer said. "But after that Duel race, all the worries went away. I'm excited."

Another driver with a smile on his face was David Reutimann, fourth-quickest in Happy Hour.

"Time will tell when we get into the heat of battle and see how things work out," Reutimann said. "We've been changing gears and air boxes and all, trying to make it a little bit better. Car handles well, the tire wear seems to be pretty good, so we'll just pack it in for the 500."

Carl Edwards is also excited, for a different reason. Wife Kate is due to give birth to their first child on Wednesday -- and just in case she goes into labor between now and the start of the race, standby replacement Mike Wallace climbed into Edwards' No. 99 Ford for a few laps of practice.

"We're just making sure we've got a plan for everything," Edwards said. "Mike was nice enough to come over and drive [the car], just check it out. He said the seat didn't fit quite right. Let me put it this way, it didn't look like the seat fit right, but he said it was perfect.

"The plan is for me to run the Daytona 500. This is just a backup plan in case there's some circumstance."

A.J. Allmendinger, whose No. 43 Ford was one of the more impressive cars in Thursday's qualifying races, will wind up going to the back of the grid Sunday. Near the end of practice, the car was sitting on pit road with a large plume of steam coming out of the overflow. As a precautionary measure, the team decided to go ahead and switch out engines after Happy Hour.