MARTINSVILLE, Va. - There was a time in Bobby Labonte's career when a fifth-place finish wouldn't have caused a ripple of interest in the media or in the garage.
That was before he joined Petty Enterprises as the new face behind the wheel of the famed No. 43 car, bringing along a career resume that could help put it back in the spotlight.
So far, though, Labonte said what he and his team accomplish on the track is all he's focusing on. He'll consider the magnitude of a victory when it comes.
"I don't know how it will be until it happens. I'll know more after that," the 2000 series champion said. "It might be total chaos, or it might be just another win."
One thing that's certain, though, is that after only six races, the Petty organization feels closer to getting back to Victory Lane than it has in a while.
Labonte's fifth-place finish at Bristol Motor Speedway two weekends ago was the first top-five run for the company in five years, and was followed by talk that a win at Martinsville was a possibility. That's the place where Team Petty got its last victory, with John Andretti driving the car Richard Petty made famous, in 1999.
It didn't work out that way at Martinsville, but Kyle Petty said the Petty teams have struggled just to compete for so long that there's really no pressure on Labonte to hurry up and take a checkered flag.
"He ran fifth at Bristol and it's, like, huge. It's huge," Petty said.
"That's what I told him: `You come over here and have any type of success and it's going to be big because it has been so long since we've had success.' The pressure's not to come out and win races at Petty Enterprises. It's to come out and run competitive."
Labonte learned to expect that and much more during 11 years at Joe Gibbs Racing, where he won 21 races.
Labonte's offseason move was the centerpiece of an ambitious Petty team rebuilding that includes Robbie Loomis, a former championship crew chief for Jeff Gordon who now is the Petty executive vice president; Todd Parrott, who won a championship with Dale Jarrett in 1999, becoming Labonte's crew chief, and Paul Andrews, another championship-winning crew chief, who came to the team last season and is the crew chief on Kyle Petty's No. 45 Dodge.
"One brings two, two brings four, four brings eight, eight brings 16 and that's the way that works," Petty said at Martinsville, where gear trouble doomed them both to poor finishes. "We're stronger as a team all the way through because of Bobby Labonte."
The chance to join a rebuilt team was what lured Labonte, too.
"I found myself in a position at the end of the year to make the move, and I thought that was the right thing for me just because of the people that were going there and the people that were there," he said. "That just made my decision easier."
So far, he sees signs that things are moving in the direction he hoped, even though he knows it takes time to build chemistry, which brings consistency.
"We're gaining on it," he said before running 32nd at Martinsville. "We've just got a lot of work to do. There's no doubt that we'll go somewhere and we're going to struggle. If we do, we've got to make sure that we realize what we did wrong."
That reality, at least for now, keeps expectations realistic.
"We're going to be like the stock market. We're going to be up and down," Labonte said.
"Everybody is excited that we can win, and we've got to keep that in mind," he said. "We don't want to walk away from (the year-end banquet in New York City) with just one top-five finish."
For the first time in a while at Petty Enterprises, the parts all seem to be in place.
"People have asked me, `Hey, what do you think about driving the 43 car?' I say it's great, and it's going to be even better when we land in Victory Lane one day," Labonte said. "That's when it's going to really mean something."