By: Zach Catanzareti, Staff Writer
When the day started, Alex Labbe was the highest-qualified underdog in the field. And when the day finished, Alex Labbe was the first underdog to the checkered.
Starting Saturday’s Drive for the Cure 250 from the Charlotte Motor Speedway Roval in the sixth spot, Canadian Labbe stayed in the top 10 nearly all day and finished in the sixth spot.
The result, his second in the top 10, was Labbe’s best in 44 career Xfinity Series starts and it came on the heels of his best starting spot, too.
“Every time I come here with these DGM guys, they always bring me the best car they can,” Labbe said. “They’re always here to race and race hard. We proved it today with a solid day.”
Following a full-time effort for DGM Racing in 2018, the 26-year-old slowed to a part-time schedule in 2019, running just his eighth race in 28 events for the series this year. And after some bad luck early in the season, Labbe was happy to take full advantage of the last road course of 2019.
“We haven’t run a lot of races this year,” he said. “It started pretty rough, we were really fast at Bristol this year, but we broke a gear, crashed at Talladega after having a good run.
“We came here really executed a good day. Running top 10 all day proves a lot for a small team like us. It’s awesome.”
The consistency of a top-10 running position made the day feel like a full successful effort, said Labbe.
“We got stage points in every stage, a fourth and a seventh, then a sixth at the end,” he said. “I’m just really proud of my DGM group. We unloaded really good, made it better and better every stop. We were really close to that top five at the end but still a solid effort.”
He still thought there was a little more in the tank if a longer green-flag run ended the race.
“We were definitely better on the long run,” he said. “We would rather had it stayed caution-free at the end, we may have had something for the Nos. 9 and 7 for sure. They were a little better than us for a couple laps, but on the long runs we were right there, maybe better.”