Labonte Ready to Clean House with No. 47 Pine-Sol Toyota Camry during the TUMS Fast Relief 500 at Martinsville Speedway
MARTINSVILLE, Va. (October 23, 2012) – – 2000 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series champion Bobby Labonte is bound and determined to have a clean race with his No. 47 Pine-Sol Toyota Camry and make it to the finish line with the fenders on his machine during the TUMS Fast Relief 500 at Martinsville Speedway.
This will be the first time the Corpus Christi, Texas-native has carried The Clorox Company’s Pine-Sol brand on his machine and the 21-time Cup winner wants to make a good first impression and top his 17th-place finish he had at the .526-mile oval in April.
“It’s cool to have Pine-Sol on the car because it’s been a household brand for the Labontes for as long as I can remember and recently it was named the best all-purpose cleaner by Consumer Reports,” Labonte said. “It has always been a solution to keeping our home clean because it is a versatile cleaner. We’ll have a lot of fun with the sponsorship and try to run a clean race. I’ll be saying the catch phrase all weekend, ‘That’s cleanin’ with the power of Pine-Sol, baby!’”
In 127 races, there have been 57 pole winners and 47 race winners. In 39 Martinsville starts, Labonte’s best start is first (4/23/95) and his best finish occurred on April 14, 2002 when he parked his Joe Gibbs Racing car in victory lane. He also has to his credit six top-five, 13 top-10s and has led 320 laps.
“Martinsville is definitely a track I love,” Labonte said. “A lot can happen in a hurry, so you always have to be on your toes there. Obviously you have to take care of your equipment because it’s a track that puts a lot of wear and tear on all the parts and pieces. Not only that, you have to keep your fenders on it because there is a lot of rooting and gouging the closer you get to the end. This race could be a game changer for drivers in the title chase. It’s a good one to watch.”
Two undesirable results back-to-back at Charlotte Motor Speedway (32nd) and Kansas Speedway (33rd) due to bad luck has not slowed the JTG Daugherty Racing team according to crew chief Brian Burns.
“We’ve had two weeks in a row where we have had really good cars, but bad misfortune,” Burns said. “This is kind of a redemption week for us to prove we are still heading in the right direction. We are comfortable coming into Martinsville. We have the same car we ran at Loudon (New Hampshire Motor Speedway) and Richmond (International Raceway). We ran better at those two short tracks with this car and it has us excited to take the same one to Martinsville. As long as everything goes normal, with Bobby’s experience, we’ll be very competitive on Sunday.”
Live coverage of the Tums Fast Relief 500 at Martinsville Speedway on Sunday, October 28th begins at 1 p.m. Eastern on ESPN. MRN Radio and Sirius XM will also broadcast the event.
