Timely pit work helps Labonte finish second

MARTINSVILLE, Va. -- Bobby Labonte scored his second consecutive runner-up finish in the Advance Auto Parts 500 Sunday at Martinsville Speedway by making his car perform when it counted.

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Labonte ran down Rusty Wallace by about a second over the last 30 laps, but couldn't get close enough to truly challenge for the win.

Labonte's Joe Gibbs Racing team executed several crisp pit stops as well, resulting in Labonte being in the top-five for both of the restarts in the last 60 laps at the tight .526-mile oval.

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"It was a good long day for us -- a hard day," Labonte said. "The guys fought back. They gave me some good pit stops there at the end and we had some good track position."

Labonte's result was his third of either first or second in his last five races at Martinsville, including a victory in this race two years ago.

"We didn't have the best handling car yesterday in practice," Labonte said of his 17th and 32nd place results in Saturday practices. "The guys fought real hard to get a good car today and they gave me that."

	Labonte's runner-up finish moved him to 12th in the standings.

Labonte started 23rd and didn't make it into the top 10 until after the race's halfway point. Once he did, he was a fixture there.

On the final restart with 38 laps remaining, Labonte was fourth behind Wallace, Jimmie Johnson and Ryan Newman. At Lap 470, Labonte passed Newman to put himself 1.532 seconds behind Wallace.

Labonte's march forward was inexorable, but in the end he fell .538 seconds behind. It enabled him to pick up three positions in the Nextel Cup standings, though, to 12th.

"The car was really good all day long," Labonte said. "To get track position was the big key. Towards the end of the race we got better track position and (how good our car was) showed more.

"We were able to get close, but not quite close enough. Catching somebody here and passing them is two different things.

"We had a great run today and we'll take this second place finish and run with it."