Bobby Labonte finished fifth at Lowe's Motor Speedway, claiming his third top-10 result in the past four races. (Photo: Getty Images/Streeter Lecka) » More Photos

ON THE RIGHT TRACK Bobby Labonte finished fifth in the Bank of America 500, more proof that Petty Enterprises is trending in the right direction after a long fallow period. "We had a good car; I knew early on," Labonte said. "We had a couple of good breaks. Everybody in the pits tonight did a good job. So it wasn't bad; we missed a couple of wrecks, so we were lucky and pretty good. We've got three top-10s in the past four races, so that's not bad."

CHANGING GEARS Robby Gordon made it official on Saturday, when he formally announced his intention to switch from Chevrolet to Ford for 2007. Robby Gordon Motorsports will continue to be a single-car team at the start of next year, but hopes to add a second Nextel Cup car no later than the start of the 2008 season. Gordon's team began work Monday on a new 125,000-square-foot shop in Charlotte. That facility should be ready by next spring, Gordon said, adding that in addition to his Cup program he will do some NASCAR Busch Series racing next year. "Well, right now today, we have started to break ground on our new facility and we're a bit out of space where we're at," said Gordon. "I would like to be able to run two (cars) today, but I'll be honest, if a sponsor came, we'd have to figure out how to do it for about five months. We're talking about May/June (of 2007) for the new facility to be open. Obviously if we found something and a proper driver and a team that Ford would be excited about, we would try to do it earlier. At worst case would be in 2008 to grow the program to two cars, and we're also looking at some Busch cars for next year as well."

TEXAS PARTY Texas Motor Speedway president Eddie Gossage, on hand Saturday at Lowe's Motor Speedway, promised a Texas-sized going-away party for Terry Labonte next month. Labonte, a two-time Cup champion, will run the last Cup race of his illustrious career next month at TMS. Gossage said the track will host a charity dinner for Labonte Nov. 2, with proceeds benefiting Speedway Children's Charities. The track also has planned an elaborate and still-secret pre-race tribute to Labonte prior to the running of the Nov. 5 Dickies 500.