Labonte manages to pick up seconds

Chevrolets sewed up the top three qualifying spots for the Sirius Satellite 400.
BROOKLYN, Mich. (AP) -- Bobby Labonte won the pole, and teammate Tony Stewart took the other front-row position in qualifying Friday at Michigan International Speedway.
Stewart put up a lap of 189.464 mph for Sunday's Sirius Satellite Radio 400. But Labonte knocked the other Joe Gibbs Racing Chevrolet off the top spot by going 190.365.
Labonte broke his own 3-year-old race qualifying record of 189.883. It was well shy of the track qualifying mark of 191.149, set in August of the same year by Dale Earnhardt Jr.
The result had Stewart, the winner last Sunday at Pocono Raceway, shaking his head over Labonte's improvement from practice to qualifying.
Puzzled
"I'm still trying to figure out how he does what he does," the Winston Cup champion said. "He's the only guy I know that can constantly go out there every week and pick up six-tenths [of a second].
"I walked down during practice. He was quick time and we were the second-quickest time. He was sitting in the car on jack stands and I said, 'Are you doing your normal deal of going out there and picking up three-quarters of a second during your timed lap? If you are, I'm not going to work on my car anymore. I'm wasting my time down here and hanging my neck out for nothing.' "
Stewart said Labonte assured him he wasn't going to do that.
"Instead, he just gets six-tenths. I couldn't run anywhere close to what he ran," Stewart said.
Earnhardt, who qualified at 189.091, giving Chevrolet a sweep of the first three spots, echoed Stewart, but gave Labonte an even bigger edge.
"The thing about Bobby is that he always has ... seven-tenths saved up somewhere," Earnhardt said. "And he only uses as much of that seventh-tenths that he needs to. ... He's so good at driving his car that he knows what he needs to do."
The actual different in time was 0.18-seconds, but a tenth is a lot in a qualifying session in which the top 42 drivers are separated by less than 1 second.
The low-key Labonte smiled as he listened to Stewart's comments.
"We worked on some things, trying stuff out," the 2000 series champion said. "We made our banzai run [in practice], ran real fast again and made a few more adjustments.
Handling well
"The car handled really good in the qualifying and stuck really good. We're just real happy with it. ... I was a little surprised how fast I went. I figured if we picked up two-tenths that would be great, but I was surprised when it ran that fast."
It was Labonte's third pole of the season, third at Michigan and the 24th of his career.
Kurt Busch was fourth in a Ford at 188.783, followed by the Chevrolet of Terry Labonte, Bobby's older brother and a two-time series champion, at 188.589. Four-time champ Jeff Gordon, Terry Labonte's teammate, was sixth at 188.541.
Ryan Newman had the fastest Dodge, taking eighth place with a lap of 188.294.
Matt Kenseth, the series leader and defending race winner, qualified 21st at 187.529.