The eyes of Texas will be upon the son, and grandson, of a couple of favorite sons Saturday when Justin Labonte and A.J. Foyt IV take to the Texas Motor Speedway for the O'Reilly Challenge.

Labonte is the son of two-time Cup series champion Terry Labonte. Foyt is the grandson of racing legend A.J. Foyt, the 1972 Daytona 500 winner.

Labonte is looking to build upon his past two races, when he finished 10th and 12th. He qualified fourth at Texas in the spring, but an accident relegated him to 33rd.

"We've had some good runs in the past couple of weeks and our team's in pretty good shape," Labonte said. "After the past two finishes we have had I think that this team has all the confidence they need to get another top-15 finish or better this weekend.

"Going home is always fun. You get to see your friends, and family. I hope that we can give them a good show. When you go to Texas you know you are going to see a good race. I hope that we can give my hometown crowd a great race and another great finish."

Labonte hasn't exactly had the season he was hoping for in his first full season on the Busch circuit. After getting his first win last year, Labonte's best finish to date this season is seventh at Talledega. He has but the two top-10s to his credit.

"At times it's been worse, and at times it's been better," said Labonte, who's ranked 17th in the standings. "This year I expected more than what we've done. Sometimes, we just haven't performed the way I've wanted, and other times we've had a great run going and just had some problems. That's in the past now and we're just concentrating on these next three races."

Foyt will be making just his second career Busch Series start. He took over the No. 38 Dodge at Memphis, but a crash ended his day early. He finished 32st.

Foyt has experience at Texas, albeit in a different kind of machine. He finished 10th at TMS in an IRL race in 2004.

"There are a lot of differences that I noticed between the IRL IndyCar and the Busch car," said Foyt, who at age 19 in 2003 became the youngest driver to start in the Indianapolis 500. "With the Busch car, you have to back out of the throttle earlier going into the corner and you have to use the entire racetrack to get the most out of your car."

But Foyt is ready to take what he's learned to the 1.5-mile Texas track.

"We tested at Texas a few weeks ago and everything went really well," Foyt said. "I'm really looking forward to returning to Texas Motor Speedway this weekend. It will be nice to be back in my home state and have my family around to support me this weekend."


Source: http://www.nacar.com

Date: 11/4/2005 10:23:59 AM