Bobby Labonte Gambles: Takes Home a Fifth-Place Finish At Vegas

Bobby Labonte would say it best post race, of his fifth place finish and called it "pretty freaking awesome." It also was great to see Hall Of Fame Racing/Yates Racing running so well after struggling for several years. 

Labonte qualified his No. 96 Ask.com Hall Of Fame Racing Ford in 17th on Friday, for Sunday's Shelby 427 at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. More exciting for his fans, was Labonte, collecting his first top five finish since since Martinsville in October 2006, and yes, he still can race.

Labonte for the first half of the race struggled with the race track and getting his car to handle just right.

For the first 164 laps of the race, Labonte got as high as 10th and as low as 26th place.

Crew chief Todd Parrott and the crew, didn't miss a beat on pit road. Making adjustments to get the 96 handling better for Labonte. Then Parrott let Vegas rub off on him and made the call that gave Labonte valuable track position and he never relinquished it back.

The 96 Ask.com car pitted on Lap 165, due to the ninth caution flag. Parrott made the gambling call for two tires, fuel and got Labonte off of pit road in second. Labonte ran in second for the next 20 laps, he tried to reel in leader Jeff Burton and held his own staying in the top five.

On Lap 221 on another caution flag, Labonte came to pit road for fuel, a chassis adjustment and came out in second behind leader Burton.

On the green flag restart on Lap 227, Labonte would let Rowdy Busch by falls to third. On Lap 230, Labonte passed Burton for second and sets his sights on Busch leading.

Labonte on Lap 233, was 1.5 seconds behind Busch and this part of the race was exciting for me.

Nine laps later Labonte had caught Rowdy Busch, the lead is under a second now and closing as he's going to be challenging for the lead shortly. It was exciting to see Labonte reel in Rowdy, get as close to 0.005 seconds back, a couple of times it looked like he had him.

But unfortunately he never hit the lap traffic right to make a pass for the lead and on Lap 258 the twelfth caution came out. On Lap 259, Labonte came to pit road, again his crew made a two tire stop, took on fuel and exited the pits in eighth place.

Over the last 25 laps, he dropped back to 10th, survived a couple of late cautions, and crossed the finish line in fifth.

Labonte, in the closing laps, looked racy as he passed both Jeff Gordon and Jamie McMurray and had David Ruetimann in his sights for fourth place.

But ran out of laps, I'm convinced had it been just five laps longer.

We could have seen Labonte steal a win in Vegas and my B/R fans would swear they heard me yelling/cheering loudly for him.

"I'm really excited about it", Labonte said. "These guys have done a great job. We've got so many great people there working for us, and i just feel like we've got all this confidence on our side right now. I'm excited we got us a top-five and we're looking forward to each and every weekend. It's going to be a builder for me."

"I just feel like I like I did all I could do, but I know there's more for me to prove in these race cars and I can't wait to do it".

Most excitingly for me is that Labonte proved he still has it, he's just not logging laps and not out of gas.

Sure come season's end, Labonte, Hall of Fame/Yates Racing along with the 96 crew will be going to the Wardorf at seasons end and finish in the top-12.

After three races, Labonte sits in 10th in the points and is 99 points back of Jeff Gordon.

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Sources: sports.yahoo.com, scenedaily.com and blog.mlive.com

Picture Source: sports.yahoo.com