By SceneDaily Staff
Thursday, June 05, 2008

Former Cup series champion Terry Labonte will race in a NASCAR event for the first time this season and for the first time for Petty Enterprises in this weekend's Pocono 500 at Pocono Raceway.

Labonte is replacing Kyle Petty in the No. 45 Dodge as Petty takes a break to work as an analyst in the TNT broadcast booth.

Labonte, who captured Cup championships in 1984 and 1996, last raced at Watkins Glen last August for Michael Waltrip Racing. He’ll serve as a teammate to his younger brother, Bobby, who drives the team’s No. 43 Dodge.

“I’m excited to get inside a race car for the first time this season,” Terry Labonte said. “Having my brother as a teammate will be special again. Bobby and I have always enjoyed the time we have spent together on the race track. We haven’t been teammates very much, but when we are it makes that time even better.

“And I’m honored that Kyle would ask me to get behind the wheel of the 45 car for these five races. I feel confident that we can go out and have some good runs.”

Terry said he’ll have to lean on Bobby for advice when it comes to driving the new Sprint Cup car, since he has only raced it twice, both on road courses last year.

“I hope Bobby remembers all of those pointers that I gave him when he was coming up through late-model stocks and the NASCAR Nationwide Series,” Terry said. “Now it feels like the roles are reversed because I don’t have much experience with the new car. I’ll be leaning heavily on Bobby for advice.

“We have a lot of tests coming up, so I’m sure I’ll have a lot of questions for him. I think we found a few things at the Pocono test that should help us this weekend.”

With a past champions provisional, Terry is locked into five races, even though the No. 45 team is outside the top 35 in owners points.

“We know that we are going to be locked into these next five races, so we can concentrate on our race setups and not worry about qualifying,” Labonte said. “Hopefully that will help [crew chief] Stewart [Cooper] and the guys find a nice rhythm for when Kyle and Chad [McCumbee] get back in the car.”

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Ryan Newman, Daytona 500 Champion!!
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