Labonte

Hard to believe we're already at the midpoint of the 2003 season. It seems like we left SpeedWeeks in Daytona just yesterday, and now we're getting ready to head back down there for the Pepsi 400.

Time flies when you're having fun, as the saying goes, and the first half of the season has been fun for the Kellogg's / got milk? Racing Team. At almost every level, the team has shown dramatic improvement over where it was a year ago.

Qualifying? We've been better at nearly every track, including winning the pole at Richmond. We qualified in the top 10 at Dover and Michigan, two tracks that have been pretty tough on us in the past.

Pit stops? I wouldn't trade these guys for anyone. My hat's off to Mark Mauldin, the Hendrick Motorsports pit crew coach who has been the key in getting the team's times down into the 14-second range on a regular basis.

Race finishes? We're getting our consistency back. That's the main ingredient that's been missing and it's the main reason, now, that we're 15th in points. We've finished every race and have as many top 10s as we had all of last year.

So how does a race team break out of a slump? When a baseball player gets in one, he'll probably take extra batting practice to try and break out of it. A place kicker or punter in football will take extra snaps until he gets his rhythm back.

Our turnaround began when crew chief Jim Long joined the team 18 months ago and made an immediate impact. He laid out a game plan that included a clear set of objectives, reasonable deadlines and honest expectations that those deadlines would be met. Jim was intent on getting this team back into the top 10 and unafraid to make the changes necessary to reach that goal.

In terms of personnel, there's been little turnover on this team. The guys on the pit crew average four or five years of service with the No. 5 team. Our car chief, Mike Bumgarner, is in his eighth year.

Jim (Long) recognized that there was already a deep pool of talent in our shop. So rather than bring in a bunch of new people, he tapped into the strengths of current team members. It was like putting a big puzzle together, identifying the right pieces and finding out where they fit. This has helped create a strong work ethic in the shop and a positive attitude at the track.

	Terry Labonte, left, talks with crew chief Jim Long after winning the pole at Richmond.

We promoted Alan Gustafson to the position of chief engineer, which every team needs today to keep pace with the rapid advances in technology. Alan is 27-years-old and represents the future of our sport. The importance of aerodynamics, shock technology and all that create a complicated formula that guys like Alan can sort out.

We still rely on the relative simplicity of stopwatches, tape measures and duct tape to help keep these cars running fast. But today, it takes sophisticated computers, too, to process all that data ... and engineers who can decipher it.

For my part, some of the best days of the 2003 season have come at tracks where I hadn't run that well in recent years. Finishing in the top 10 at Dover, Pocono and Michigan was an eye opener. Collectively, that was our best series of finishes on those three tracks since the mid-1990s.

The challenge we face, now, is to continue to show improvement in qualifying, build on that consistency from the first 16 races, keep moving up in the point standings ... and get back to Victory Lane.

We're hoping the second half of the season will be as much fun as the first half was. If that's the case, then it'll be November before we know it.

Terry Labonte drives the No. 5 Kellogg's/got milk? Chevrolet for Hendrick Motorsports. He is providing a biweekly diary to ESPN.com throughout the 2003 NASCAR season. Labonte's personal Web site can be found at www.terrylabonte.net or go to www.hendrickmotorsports.com for team information.