Bobby Labonte Kansas Speedway Preview

In 14 races at Kansas Speedway, Bobby Labonte’s best finish is 16th (10/10/04) and his best start is fourth (10/5/03). His average start is 21.857 and his average finish is 29.714. He has led two laps at the venue.

His best finish this season is 15th at Daytona International Speedway (2/24/13).

He is currently 30th in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series points standings, 99 points out of 10th place.

The 2000 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion will make his 700th career start in the coming weeks. It will take place at Talladega Superspeedway on Sunday, May 5th during the Aaron’s 499.

JTG Daugherty Racing Quotes

Bobby Labonte continues to recover from a stomach virus that plagued him at Texas: “Every day is a little better,” Bobby Labonte said. “My doctor has seen a lot of this lately with a wide variety of time to feel better. I hope to be getting better everyday. We have to put Texas behind us and focus on Kansas Speedway. The Kansas repave is nice from last year. We will see if it changed any over winter. We had a good car last time and I wrecked it. We can apply some stuff from the Texas test day a little. We are still behind on some things that we haven’t had time to test real well and look at data and meet about the changes.”

Crew chief Brian Burns moves forward to Kansas Speedway with something to prove: “Outside looking in, you would say that last weekend was a step back for our team,” crew chief Brian Burns said. “Minus the finishing results, it may have actually been our ‘Black Swan’ to help change things around. We had a very valuable test session on Thursday, which answered quite a few unknowns that we have had earlier in the season. Bobby was feeling pretty rough all weekend, and it really hit him hard on race day. We started the race with 15th to 20th place potential from the get go. Bobby probably shouldn’t have even started the race with how he was feeling, but race car drivers are a really tough breed and tend to push their limits quite a bit further than most of us.

“I want to thank Michael McDowell for jumping in the car on a minutes notice and helping us out,” continued Burns. “Getting feedback from another driver can be very helpful in assuring us that we are headed in the right direction. We have our focus set on Kansas this weekend, and hopeful that Bobby will have made a full recovery by then. I promise you that our group gets stronger and buckles down harder when times get tough, and we plan on proving it.”

Co-Owner Tad Geschickter knows his team is talented: “We have had a slower than expected start to the season,” JTG Daugherty Racing co-owner Tad Geschickter said. “That made Bobby’s illness this past weekend even more challenging for everyone. The results don’t yet reflect the hard work of a great group of talented people at JTG Daugherty Racing, but I have no doubt that they will.”

 
JTG