Sports: Win long time coming on a short track

MARTINSVILLE, Va. -- All this time, it wasn't that Bobby Labonte was not talented enough to mix it up on the fender-bending short tracks in Winston Cup racing.

He was too nice.

Sunday, he finally finished first.

At a track where rubbing is racing, Labonte plied patience and pit strategy to win the Virginia 500 at Martinsville Speedway for his first short-track victory in 64 starts.

Labonte made his most aggressive move during a conversation with crew chief Jimmy Makar, suggesting track position was more important than fresh tires during a late caution. He assumed the lead on Lap 446 of 500 when Tony Stewart and Bobby Hamilton pitted to change tires.

Labonte led the rest of the way.

"I'm never one to push anybody out of the way like I've seen other guys do, so I figured if I was up front I probably had a better shot at it than being behind somebody," said Labonte, driver of the No. 18 Pontiac. "It's hard to pass on this track."

Labonte took the checkered flag under caution for his 19th win, but had pulled out to a sizable lead over Matt Kenseth when Hamilton spun three laps from the finish. Stewart, Labonte's teammate at Joe Gibbs Racing, Dale Jarrett and Dale Earnhardt Jr. completed the top five.

With his sixth top 10, Kenseth closed to within 27 points of leader Sterling Marlin, who was 12th.

"We just missed it," Marlin said of the setup necessary for Martinsville's sharp turns.

Stewart, who had one of the day's strongest cars, thought it was the right move to change two tires 55 laps from the finish. When he ducked on pit road, Stewart and crew chief Greg Zipadelli expected the rest of the leaders to follow.

Only Hamilton did.

"We had the best car out here all day and we gave it away," said Stewart, who led a race-high 152 laps in the No. 20. "I was right with Greg on the call to come in and take two, and nobody else came."

Labonte and Makar had other ideas.

"Usually your driver wants four tires every time a caution comes out, so when he even mentioned the words 'staying out' it was like a breath of fresh air to me," Makar said. "I was all over that."

There were 19 lead changes among 13 drivers, an unusually high number for the flat, .526-mile track on which passing is tricky. There were 14 cautions for 104 laps, not that surprising for a place where feelings and fenders frequently get hurt.

"That's as hard and as close as I've seen the racing here," Jarrett said.

When it was over, most cars had some damage. Racing was especially close after a restart with seven laps left as drivers fought for nearly every position on the track. Side-by-side racing between Kenseth and Jarrett for second allowed Labonte to pull away.

"He squeezed me up into the wall a little bit once, we rubbed a couple of times, so we kind of went back and forth," Kenseth said. "There was really nothing dirty about it. As long as nobody gets turned around backwards or nobody gets wrecked, that's racin'."

Not to Labonte.

Winner of the 2000 championship, Labonte is regarded as one of the cleanest drivers in the series. He treats competitors with respect and, usually, they return the favor. Labonte's style, therefore, is not suited to the circuit's three tracks less than a mile: Martinsville, Bristol and Richmond.

"Bobby really is a great short-track driver," Makar said. "It's just that sometimes he's a little bit too nice for some of the guys out there. A lot of times, you've got to push the issue, but Bobby is not that type of race car driver, and everybody knows it."

Labonte, whose best at Martinsville was fourth in 2001, was fifth at Bristol in March. His driving style won't change, but perhaps his short-track fortunes have.

"It's not that I don't like short tracks, I just don't run as good at them as some other guys," Labonte said. "We always run well, we're just not contenders for winning a lot of times. We're usually fifth to 10th.

"But I enjoy it, and I'll enjoy it more now."

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