Labonte Has Handle on New Hampshire
One of Best Drivers at New England Oval

LEVEL CROSS, NC (July 11,2006) - This weekend, Bobby Labonte and the #43 Cheerios/Betty Crocker Dodge team head to the one-mile New Hampshire International Speedway, located in Loudon, for Sunday’s Lenox Industrial Tools 300.

Labonte will be making his 23rd consecutive start at the track this weekend. Labonte has scored a top-10 finish in forty percent of his starts at the track. Labonte has nine top-10 and five top-five finishes at the track.

Labonte’s best finish at the flat one-mile oval is second in 2000. He finished third in this race one year ago. Labonte has an awesome qualifying record at the track as well. He has qualified 10th or better 13 times in his 22 starts. He won the pole in 2000.

Comments from Labonte as he prepares for this weekend’s Lenox Industrial Tools 300:

Was it good to get a 12th place finish at Chicagoland?

“It was good to get a good finish, but we really wanted to be inside the top-10. We ran second for a while and we had a pretty good car. But, yeah, it’s good to get that finish after what happened at Sonoma and Daytona. That puts us back on track to get some good runs the rest of this month.

“This is going to be another big race for us. We moved up a position in points (25th) after dropping a few. We want to get back where we were and then try to get into the top-20 and top-15. That’s where we want to be at the end of the season. We want to get as high as we can get. We needed to get back on track and we did that at Chicago. Hopefully we can continue that at New Hampshire.

You have to be excited about going to New Hampshire?

“You always feel good going into a track that you like. I have had some success there too. We’ve had some really good runs there in the past. I really like the track and think we’ll have a good run this weekend.

“Todd (Parrott) knows how to win there too. I think we’re going there with a good combination. We’ll still have to put it together. We want to start near the front. It’s a tough track to pass and starting up front will be important. It helps to get a good finish when you qualify well. Friday will be a big day for us.

Will guys be tired after testing at Indianapolis earlier in the week?

“It’s just a longer week for a lot of guys. The guys on the team, it’s a long week for them. They are the ones that are working hard and not getting much time off. It’s a tough week for us because we don’t have much time at home.

“But, it’s what we do. We’re racers and this is part of it. We learned some things this week to get ready to go back to Indy. It’s a big race and everyone wants to win it. We’re all putting a lot of effort into Indy. That hard works pays off when you have a good run there. It’s a special race to win.

“We’re still focused for New Hampshire. There isn’t anything that happened this week that took our attention away from winning this weekend. Testing is part of the schedule. We are ready to have a good race on Sunday.”