After the Inaugural K&N Spring Fling 20’s at Bristol Dragway one year ago, there was one name which echoed loudly throughout all of Thunder Valley.
John Labbous Jr. took home three of the four coveted big checks last year and struck again during the event’s second annual running this past weekend as he won Saturday night’s JEGS $20,000 event and the $5,000 McCarty Door Car Shootout.
Prior to his wins, Labbous Jr. found himself in a slump during Thursday and Friday’s performances. “I felt beat up. I wasn’t driving great. I couldn’t get things rolling or get myself into a routine. I didn’t have much success,” Labbous Jr. stated.
After the Inaugural K&N Spring Fling 20’s at Bristol Dragway one year ago, there was one name which echoed loudly throughout all of Thunder Valley.
John Labbous Jr. took home three of the four coveted big checks last year and struck again during the event’s second annual running this past weekend as he won Saturday night’s JEGS $20,000 event and the $5,000 McCarty Door Car Shootout.
Prior to his wins, Labbous Jr. found himself in a slump during Thursday and Friday’s performances. “I felt beat up. I wasn’t driving great. I couldn’t get things rolling or get myself into a routine. I didn’t have much success,” Labbous Jr. stated.
“To win on Saturday, I had to make myself concentrate. I just had to bear down and realize there was a lot of money on the line. When you do this for a living there is a lot of money going out for the opportunity,” he explained.
“When you do this for three or four days every week it’s easy to fall into a rut. You find yourself just going through the motions and sometimes the win light will come on but to win consistently you have to execute a plan. There’s always room for improvement and my car has bailed me out plenty of times but I drove the starting line really well on Saturday and it helped a lot,” Labbous added.
Labbous Jr. was then joined by his father Johnny Labbous Sr. to create the most memorable father-son performance at a big money bracket race event. “He (Labbous Sr.) won in front of me. When my win light came on I knew we had done it. At that point it was like the race was over, but we’re racers and we had to go out there and finish it. If I’m not running myself in the final, I would want to run him,” Labbous Jr. proudly stated. “I raced him hard, just like we’ve always raced against each other,” he exclaimed.
The momentum of winning the main event of the night carried him into the door car shootout. “Winning breeds winning. You’re still on a high and it takes the pressure off. After winning the twenty grander, I had gotten myself into a zone and jumped in a great car to win the shootout,” stated Labbous Jr.
Labbous Jr. remembers back to the late 1980’s, early 1990’s, when “the fifty grand race we have now in Michigan used to be a twenty grander and back then it was the biggest race of the year. There has slowly been an evolution over the years with different areas and tracks hosting bigger races. We’ve been moving on to bigger and better things with the Ultimate 64, Spring Fling Bracket Race, the Million and a variety of big dollar races spread throughout the year. The sport has grown with setbacks from the economy, but it continues to grow. Bracket racing is not dead, not at all.”
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