Victory in Brickyard 400 Gets Labonte's Attention

By SHAV GLICK

Aug. 6, 2000 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

INDIANAPOLIS —

For Bobby Labonte, winning $831,225 and the Brickyard 400 with a late-race pass of Rusty Wallace, the day was far from uneventful.

For Wallace, who led 110 of 160 laps and raced 75 laps with Labonte nipping at his rear bumper, there was nothing uneventful about the day.

For Joe Gibbs, who added the Brickyard 400 to a trophy case that holds three Super Bowl trophies and one for winning the Daytona 500, it was not uneventful.

Nor for Darrell Waltrip, the 53-year-old warrior who started second, slid back to 29th and then passed car after car under green flag conditions to work his way all the way to ninth before finishing 11th, was it uneventful.

But for the 325,000 fans who jammed Indianapolis Motor Speedway Saturday for the seventh running of NASCAR’s Winston Cup stock car race and the national TV audience--it had to be uneventful. A yawner.

Passing was at a premium, Wallace and Labonte had the field covered from the time they caught pole-sitter Ricky Rudd on Lap 20, and the lack of yellow caution flag periods prevented teams from making changes to their chassis as the weather changed from clear and warm to cloudy and cool. This created a situation of follow the leader.

There were only two accidents, both early in the race, and the lack of yellow cautions enabled Labonte to average a record 155.918 mph for the 400 miles.

“To beat a great driver like Rusty is just awesome,” said Labonte, who drove Gibbs’ green Interstate Batteries Pontiac to victory. “He put up a great fight. I can’t think of a better day, to win at a place like this. It’s just awesome.

“And I rode around with Darrell Waltrip on the parade lap and he signed my hat. This is one of those races that you dream about. I’ve dreamed about it a long time. Tony Stewart, I’ll remember that when I kiss those bricks, they’re Hoosier bricks.”

Stewart, Labonte’s teammate and a native of Indiana, was right behind Labonte’s wife, Donna, to give the winner a hug after he climbed out of his car.

Bill Elliott finished third, equaling his best finish of the year, a third in the Daytona 500.

The win helped Labonte extend his Winston Cup standings lead over defending champion Dale Jarrett to 87 points. Jarrett finished seventh in a Ford.

“I had fun all day long,” said Wallace, remarkably upbeat after finishing second in one of Roger Penske’s Fords. “We put up a great race with Bobby for 75 laps with him four inches off my bumper. Then he got under me in [Turn] 3 and I knew he had it.”

The winning pass came on Lap 146. It was a harrowing moment.

Labonte made his move coming off the third turn, but Wallace was not about to give up the lead. The two battled side by side down the front straightaway, racing so close at 200 mph that Labonte’s right front touched Wallace’s left rear. At the start-finish line, Labonte had a margin of .004 of a second.

As the cars exited Turn 1, Labonte finally drew clear. From then on, it was only a matter of how wide a margin the Pontiac could build.

“I was puckered up on that one because when we got to [Turn] 1, I wasn’t sure what was going to happen,” Labonte said. “We’d already brushed each other once. I didn’t want to mix his blue and my green cars together because I didn’t know what color that was going to be.”

At the checkered flag, Labonte held a 4.226-second margin, the widest margin of victory in Brickyard 400 history.

“All I saw was blue [Wallace’s car] all day long it seemed like,” Labonte said. “I thought I was never going to pass that blue car--blue, blue, blue. I just kept working on him. I really didn’t think I was going to be able to get him all day.”

Labonte also had the fastest lap of the race, 173.477 mph, on the second lap. It was also the fastest ever Brickyard lap, bettering Jeff Gordon’s 172.639 on Lap 10 in 1997.

“Jimmy [crew chief Makar] and Bobby are the guys who deserve this,” Gibbs said. “We have a great team, including the 20 car [Stewart] guys.”

Meanwhile, back in the pack, Waltrip has having a run like the old days when he won three Winston Cup championships and dominated NASCAR.

“All I wanted was what I said the other day, I wanted people to leave knowing Ol’ DW was there,” said Waltrip, who started on the front row with Rudd. “I wanted to pass the 32 car [Scott Pruett] for a top-10 finish, but I can’t complain. The fun meter was way, way up. I couldn’t have done any better. It was a great weekend and people will remember that this was DW’s last race at Indianapolis and that’s all that matters.”

Pruett’s 10th-place finish was the best of his rookie year, and also equaled his best finish in the Indianapolis 500 in an open-wheel Indy car.

“Comparing the 500 with the Brickyard, the only thing that really comes back is the awesomeness of Indianapolis,” Pruett said. “I think there’s only a handful of drivers who can say, ‘You know what? I competed in the Indy 500 and finished in the top 10, I competed in the Brickyard 400 and finished top 10,’ and to be in that group makes me very proud.”

Actually, the handful is only two. John Andretti is the only other one.

Unfortunately, Andretti was eliminated this year when he blew a right-front tire, sending his car into the wall on Lap 42.

The only other incident occurred when Mark Martin, Michael Waltrip and Mike Skinner became entangled. After some bumping at close quarters, Martin hit the wall with the rear of his car.

“I’m 100 percent sure it was an accident,” Martin said. “Accidents happen. Skinner was behind me, trying to help my draft past Waltrip. When we had to check up when Waltrip was having trouble getting through the corner, Skinner got in the back of me. It was the last thing he wanted to happen. It was just an accident.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

BRICKYARD RESULTS

Top five finishers with car and earnings:

1. Bobby Labonte

Pontiac $831,225

2. Rusty Wallace

Ford $310,625

3. Bill Elliott

Ford $239,475

4. Jerry Nadeau

Chevrolet $210,875

5. Tony Stewart