Catchfence

Kansas City, Kansas, (Oct. 2, 2009) – Bobby Labonte will start the No. 71 TRG Motorsports Chevrolet Impala SS from the 13th row for Sunday’s running of the Price Chopper 400 presented by Kraft Foods NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at Kansas Speedway.

Labonte and the team are running a new Chevrolet Impala SS this weekend. The team, led by veteran crew chief Richard “Slugger” Labbe, worked on the car all day to get it dialed into the windswept Kansas Speedway. The Texan posted a time of 31.151 seconds and an average speed of 173 mph.

“In practice we never really got what we needed out of the car,” Labonte said. “I think we were somewhere around 30th. The car was a little too tight and the wind was blowing us around a good bit. We struggled trying to get the car just right. We didn’t qualify all that bad. I think I might have lost a tenth of a second when I messed up a little.

“We were struggling with the car in turns three and four. There is a bump there on the fast line and when we hit that we were just a little too tight, the car would bounce up the race track. We tried a few different things in practice to make it better. Slugger wanted to try a few more changes and we just ran out of time. Three and four was a nemesis for us today.

“We have more speed in the car. We will go to work on the car in race trim tomorrow. I feel good about the car. It has a lot of speed left in it. The things we needed we just didn’t get to fast enough. We will work on that tomorrow and get the speed out of it for the race on Sunday. Slugger is a little mad at himself, but that usually means we will get it right.”

TRG Motorsports team principal, Kevin Buckler, is still looking for that last cash infusion for the weekend, but has a lot of faith in his team to perform.

“It was a tricky day at the track today,” Buckler said. “The wind was crazy. You could almost see the cars rocking as they waited to go out on the track. That makes it tough to get the car dialed into the circuit. Bobby and Slugger have been on the same page since he started with us at Atlanta, so I am not that concerned on the performance end. As usual, I bet we have a good race car. We are still looking for that last little bit of funding for the weekend, but we are very close.”

The team will have support from Club Motorsports (www.clubmotorsports.com), Adobe Road Winery (www.adoberoadwines.com), RaceHost.com, Comfort Inn as well as TaxSlayer.com for this weekend’s race.

The NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Price Chopper 400 presented by Kraft Foods from Kansas Speedway will be televised on ABC starting at 1:00 p.m. ET, Sunday, September 24.

TRG Motorsports is based in Mooresville, North Carolina. Currently the team fields a NASCAR Sprint Cup Series entry as well as a limited Camping World Truck Series effort and an ARCA RE/MAX Series team. The Racer’s Group was founded in 1993 and has been competing at the top level of sports car racing. TRG’s Porsche sports car program is run out of the company’s headquarters in Petaluma, California. The team has the most wins of any team in the Grand-Am Rolex Series with 28, including the 2005 and 2006 Rolex Series GT championship trophy to go along with wins in the Rolex 24 Hours at Daytona (three) and the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

The TRG Motorsports crew is comprised of Mike Brown, Paul Clapprood, Dennis Croxell, Bobby Dell, Marc Hendricksen, Richard “Slugger” Labbe, Andy Pugh, Tim Rice, Jesse Sanders and Joe Zanolini.

- TRG Motorsports, Press Release