By Tom Gardner
SONOMA, Calif. (AP) _ Fuel strategy paid off for Terry Labonte on Sunday at Infineon Raceway, where the two-time NASCAR champion benefited from some late cautions and a little luck to nurse his car the final 50 laps on a tank of gas.
The result: a third-place finish in the Dodge/Save Mart 350.
``It was an awful good run. We got really good gas mileage,'' Labonte said. ``We needed a couple of caution laps. We gambled on it.''
In addition, he said the car was a little loose, which kept him from using the throttle the way he normally would have, which might have run him out of fuel.
Making only his sixth start of the year for Hall of Fame Racing, owned by former NFL quarterbacks Roger Staubach and Troy Aikman, Labonte took the lead on Lap 71 when other drivers pitted.
He held off eventual race winner Jeff Gordon until Lap 88 and Ryan Newman couldn't get past Labonte until the next-to-last lap.
His crew chief, Philippe Lopez _ wearing a Terry Labonte T-shirt he bought 22 years ago _ urged his driver to conserve fuel.
``I knew what he was trying to tell me, but I didn't try to change anything. I just kept doing what I'd been doing all day,'' Labonte said.
Labonte, who also is driving part-time for Hendrick Motorsports, where he won his second title, started the first five races of the year for Hall of Fame Racing. That gave the new team enough owner's points that it didn't have to qualify on speed for every race and Labonte then turned over the wheel to Tony Raines. Raines is scheduled to complete the season except for the two road course races, here and in August at Watkins Glen.
Earlier in the day, Aikman said the startup team was just hoping to finish the year in the top 25.
After Labonte's performance Sunday, Staubach was ecstatic.
``We wouldn't have dreamed we could do this quickly, but we have a great driver and a great person and Philippe did his job,'' he said.
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GORDON ENGAGED: Jeff Gordon is ready to get married again.
The four-time NASCAR champion plans to marry Belgian model and actress Ingrid Vandebosch. The two started dating in 2004 and appeared together in the movie ``Taxi,'' in which Vandebosch played a bank robber and Gordon made an uncredited cameo appearance at her invitation.
They began dating about a year after Gordon's much-publicized and expensive divorce from Brooke, his wife of seven years.
``She's got a much better guy this time around,'' he said of Vandebosch.
Gordon said the couple had been engaged about a month, but did not officially announce it until Saturday.
Then he won Sunday's race.
``It's just been a special week all the way around,'' he said.
Vandebosch, who began her modelling career at the age of 12 and is ``about 34,'' according to an online biography, has also dated actor Bruce Willis and former Baltimore Oriole Brady Anderson. Gordon will be 35 in August.
No date has been set for the wedding.
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SHORT RACE: Three drivers never made it through the first lap Sunday as a five-car wreck triggered by Ken Schrader's spin took Schrader, Sterling Marlin and Tom Hubert out on the eighth of Infineon's 11 turns.
Schrader said he didn't know if was tagged before the spin, but he definitely felt it when first Marlin, then Hubert slammed into him.
``It was pretty hard. It was a good one,'' he said.
After the spin, Schrader said he just found himself going the wrong way.
``I looked up and saw all kinds of cars and said, `There ain't no way they are all going to miss us,' and they didn't.''
Marlin he couldn't see in all the dust and smoke.
``He ... just appeared out of the dust and I didn't have anywhere to go,'' he said.
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RINGERS ROCKEED: It was also a long day for the ringers _ road racing specialists hired to fill in for a team's driver who's most comfortable just turning left.
Scott Pruett was the only one of the three to finish on the lead lap, in 30th place.
P.J. Jones, the son of racing legend Parnelli Jones, was 36th after losing his rear end and Ron Fellows battled a rash of problems on his way to a 37th-place finish.
Boris Said, who finished ninth, barely qualifies as a ringer any more. Sunday marked the debut of his new racing team owned with Mark Simo and Frank Stoddard.
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DOUBLE DIPPING: Seven of the drivers in Sunday's race did double duty this weekend in another time zone.
Denny Hamlin finished second and J.J. Yeley was third Saturday night in a Busch Series race at the Milwaukee Mile won by Paul Menard.
Clint Bowyer was 18th, Kevin Harvick 19th, Carl Edwards 21st and Kyle Busch 24th.
And at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course in Lexington, Pruett came in 36th in a car he co-drove with Luis Diaz in a Grand American Rolex Sports Car Series race.
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SPARK PLUGS: Robby Gordon's day ended on Lap 76 with a broken tie rod after he had run as high as second. ... Tony Stewart's hopes of repeating his victory here a year ago were thwarted when he lost a cylinder on Lap 96. ... Hamlin had the top rookie finish for the ninth time in 15 races at 12th, but still slipped out of the top 10 in points. ... Dave Blaney's Cup-leading string of 33 straight races running at the end came to a close on the 79th lap with a broken drive shaft. ... Sunday marked NASCAR's 100th road course race.
