Bobby Labonte and the #43 Cheerios/Betty Crocker Dodge team overcame an early race pit stop penalty and a late race spin to finish 22nd in Sunday’s Food City 500 at the .533-mile Bristol (Tenn.) Motor Speedway.
“This car was just really tight,” said Labonte. “We worked on it all weekend. We have something to study now. We’re going to do that before Martinsville and see if we can make more progress.”
Jeff Gordon, who finished in the third spot in the #24 DuPont Impala SS and was involved in Labonte's spin had this to say about the Car of Tomorrow's handling in traffic:
Bobby Labonte slowed up in front of me and I couldn't slow in time. I ran hard into the back of him and I was really concerned. I thought we were going to have a lot more damage come in the way that radiator opening is. There's just some unknowns but we had no problems. I was pretty impressed with that and it didn't seem like it did too much damage to Bobby.
The 3rd place finish at Bristol was enough to propel Gordon to the top of the Nextel Cup standings.