Texas Terry Article

[Mel]

Lone Star legacy

 

 

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Labonte family's racing roots are in Texas

By: Tony Fabrizio

The Dallas Morning News

 

 

The whole thing began with a blind date. Bob Labonte, a ruggedly handsome Navy man who was stationed in Corpus Christi, took out Martha, from up the road in Refugio, Texas.

 

"He wore on me, I guess," Martha said, obviously understating the matter because the couple married four months later.

 

Two sons were born: Terry in 1956, and Bobby in 1964. The pieces were in place for a racing tradition that would carry into the next century.

 

Forty-five years after the wedding vows, the Labontes stand as Texas' most visible representation in NASCAR. Never mind that Terry moved to North Carolina in 1978 to be near the racing hub, and that the rest of the family followed in 1980. The Labontes … particularly "Texas Terry" … will always be Texans.

 

Terry, 43, a two-time Winston Cup champion, is the defending champion of next Sunday's newly named DIRECTV 500 at Texas Motor Speedway. Bobby, 35, is a leading contender for the 2000 title after finishing second to Dale Jarrett last year.

 

"Big" Bob, 67, runs the family's Busch Series team, for which Terry and his 19-year-old son, Justin, are sharing the driving. Martha still works at the shop, handling payroll for her sons' various businesses.

 

This is how it has been for decades: Bob guiding his sons' careers, Martha doing whatever she can to help, and Terry and Bobby making the family name famous in racing. "I always supported whatever they wanted, 100 percent," Bob said recently at North Carolina Speedway. "When Terry played youth league football, I wound up coaching the team because I was the only one that went to every practice. I'd have been involved in whatever they wanted to do. If it was tying flies for a fishing reel, I'd have probably gone to the library and gotten me 20 books on tying flies."

 

Bob put Terry in a go-kart at age 5 and a quarter-midget at 7. Terry excelled. Soon they were traveling the country.

 

"At one time, we probably had four cars," Terry said. "We would go as far away as Portland, Denver, Alabama, Ohio. My dad would get off work on Friday and we'd go racing in Denver that weekend. Drive straight through."

 

Bobby, being seven years younger than his brother, either tagged along or stayed home with Martha.

 

Terry was still strolling the halls of Mary Carroll High School when he began driving Bob's '57 Chevy illegally at Corpus Christi Speedway. He won the hobby class track championship in his first full year. Afterward, the track promoter wanted to know "how darn long" Terry was going to be 17. Bob replied, "I don't know; we'll have to figure it out."

 

Corpus Christi Speedway opened in 1945 and remains in operation. A.J. Foyt and the late Billy Wade, both hot shots from Houston, ran on the banked quarter-mile in the 1950s. Corpus Christi's Shorty Rollins also raced there before becoming NASCAR's first Rookie of the Year in 1958.

 

The competition was rough-and-tumble then, just as it was in the in the early '70s. Terry lasted about a month in the late-model division before clashing with a stalwart named Rick Rapp. The situation got so bad that Terry started driving with a can of Mace on the seat next to him and Rapp with a knife taped to his roll bar.

 

Rapp, who still lives in Corpus Christi and runs a small car dealership, enjoys telling the story now. The knife, he said, "wasn't so much for Terry as it was for his crew." Both sides were worried about an attack from the other, he said.

 

Nothing serious ever came of the feud, though, and Labontes and Rapp wound up friends. Rapp even worked on the pit crew for one of Justin Labonte's Busch Series races last year.

 

Terry "would fight at the drop of a hat" during those CC Speedway days, his dad says, but the long-haired kid wasn't particularly imposing at about 150 pounds. Big Bob was another matter, though. A native of Rumford, Maine, with French ancestry, Bob was (and is) a lug of a man. He has a piercing stare and a deep voice with a mild stutter that somehow makes him seem even more authoritative.

 

He didn't like to be challenged, and one night at CC Speedway, a rival made the mistake of questioning the legality of Terry's pistons.

 

"This guy comes over and says, 'How about the valve reliefs?' " Bob recalled. "Well, everybody had the same thing I had. I grabbed him by the back of the hair and shoved his head down in to the bore, and I said, 'You want to look at this thing?' "

 

Bob commanded respect, though. He had raced a little in the Maine days, and he could build a race car from the bearings up. Moreover, he had abiding love and devotion to his family.

 

"Big Bob comes from the old school," said Rapp. "He was actually the one I had to stare down whenever the confrontations started. Terry would get up on top of the truck, and it would be me and Bob face to face.

 

"But he has really worked to get those boys the success they've had, because it didn't just happen. He did it right here in the garage shop in Corpus," said Rapp. "He was there every night 'til midnight or 1 o'clock in the morning, working on these local Saturday night-type cars to make them successful at whatever race track they went to around the state."

 

Terry didn't stay long at CC Speedway. He moved on to now-defunct Meyer Speedway near Houston and also ran at tracks in San Antonio and Shreveport, La.

 

As a teenager, Terry earned a reputation as a savvy racer who rarely took unnecessary chances. He wasn't a hard charger. Little has changed about his style.

 

"If he had to spin you out or run into you to win, he wouldn't do it," said James Mikulencak, a former CC Speedway driver who runs Ace Transmission in Corpus Christi. "He could somehow maneuver around guys without having to screw them up. Everyone was jealous because he was outrunning them."

 

Billy Hardcastle, another ex-CC Speedway driver who runs Dub's Garage in Corpus Christi, also attests to the envy.

 

"I think mostly people got frustrated because of the way Terry and his dad approached the thing," he said. "They spent a lot of time and put a lot of effort into it. It wasn't just a hobby to them. Some people thought they had advantages in tires or whatever, but it was just because they researched it and worked at it."

 

The hatchets have been buried in Corpus Christi. A cast of admirers remains.

 

"It's kind of funny, all the people we didn't get along with when were there, the minute we left town, all of them became our big fans," Bob said. "I don't know if they all felt they had a part in this deal or what, but they did. I've got guys down there that we'd cross the street before we'd speak to each other. Now we go to Fort Worth for the race and we get passes for some. Some will come to the fence and go, 'Hey come out to the RV here when you're done practicing.' "

 

 

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Texans like their sports legends bigger than life. Terry Labonte doesn't fit the mold. He's 5-10, 165 pounds, doesn't dress in a noticeable way, and he avoids publicity. He is so reserved that Kim, his wife of twenty-something years, asked him out on their first date.

 

The most controversial thing Terry has done in years was raise an eyebrow last summer after Dale Earnhardt ripped through him like a tornado to win at Bristol, Tenn.

 

"I've known him ever since he was in diapers, and he's always been the quiet one," said Slick Yoemans, a former CC Speedway driver and Terry's partner in High Point (N.C.) Auto Salvage. "A lot of people used to think he was stuck up, but he just didn't like to talk. Bobby's just the opposite. Bobby's never met a stranger."

 

Texans also like their sports legends rugged and enduring, and Terry exceeds those standards. Nicknamed the Ice Man, he has made a career out of keeping his head in a sport in which tempers often flare. Though never a dominant winner - even in his championship seasons, 1984 and 1996, he won only two races - Terry has 16 top-10 finishes in the championship standings in 21 years.

 

A career highlight came when he broke Richard Petty's lofty record of 513 consecutive starts. Terry did that in 1996, and he still hasn't missed a race dating back to his rookie season in 1979. If he starts Sunday's Food City 500 at Bristol, he'll bring a Ripkenesque streak of 642 consecutive starts to Texas.

 

Bobby stands apart from his brother in style and demeanor. A five-race winner last year, Bobby, 5-8, 165, is an aggressive driver who wins poles, leads laps and risks top-10 finishes for victories.

 

His dry sense of humor has brought levity to the circuit that's reminiscent of Darrell Waltrip's youthful days.

 

Reporter: Did Dale Earnhardt make you nervous in the closing laps?

 

Bobby: Yes.

 

Reporter: How nervous were you?

 

Bobby: Real nervous. We were on the way to a photo shoot one time and he passed me on the road, and I got nervous then.

 

Get to know Bobby, push the right buttons, and he'll make you laugh.

 

"He's not a smart aleck, he's just comical," said Martha, his mother. "We used to tell him we took him on trips for the entertainment."

 

In very different ways, Billy Hagan, a Louisiana oil magnate who owned a stock car racing team, was responsible for both Labontes getting their NASCAR starts.

 

Hagan discovered Terry at Meyer Speedway, where Terry was running the track's weekly program. Track promoter Ed Hamlin, who was known for helping promising young drivers, later invited Hagan to come out and have a few beers and watch Terry. Hagan showed up, liked what he saw, and signed Terry to a contract guaranteeing him $1,000 whether he won or finished last.

 

"He didn't have the fastest car that night, but the fastest car was illegal," Hagan recalled of his initial impression. "Terry got ahead of him one time, and I watched him snooker him in the corner with a real slick move. Somebody dropped a tailpipe, and Terry moved over so the guy would think he was going to drive under him. But there was that tailpipe lying in the middle of the road.

 

"I said, 'Well, if the guy's thinking that much, he's got something.' "

 

Terry won the Meyer Speedway championship, and Hagan took him to NASCAR. Terry was 21 when he competed in his first Winston Cup race in 1978. He finished fourth in the Southern 500 at tough Darlington (S.C.). Six years later, he won the championship driving Hagan's No. 44 Chevy.

 

The oil bust had hit Hagan's business hard, though, and Terry, who wasn't being paid in in 1986, signed after that season with Junior Johnson. Terry had a second stint with Hagan in the early '90s, and left again in '94 to drive for Hendrick Motorsports, his current team. Some friction remains between Hagan and the Labontes.

 

"We don't go after each other with baseball bats, but we don't sit down on Saturday night and drink beer together, either," said Hagan, who is out of NASCAR, but occasionally makes the rounds through the Winston Cup garage area.

 

Terry is too polite to talk about financial dealings gone awry, but Bob touched on the history.

 

"Billy knows he was wrong, and that's why he doesn't want to talk about it," Bob said. "But I've told Billy, 'You know you're as responsible for this as any of us, because you gave [Terry] his first break.' "

 

Bobby was a 20-year-old shop hand and pit crewman on Terry's '84 championship team. When Terry left for Johnson's team, Hagan fired Bobby.

 

But Bobby had received a free education in race-car engineering from renowned crew chief Jake Elder. Bobby learned to tear apart and rebuild motors, tune suspensions, weld chassis parts and fabricate body work. Many drivers never obtain such knowledge.

 

Being free from Hagan also allowed Bobby to pursue his driving aspirations. He worked his way up from the short tracks around Charlotte to the Busch Series, where, with Big Bob's help, he won the 1991 championship.

 

That attracted the attention of Busch Series team owner Bill Davis, who had lost Jeff Gordon to Hendrick Motorsports and was moving up to Winston Cup in 1993. Bobby drove for Davis' fledgling operation in '93 and '94.

 

Bobby's biggest break came at the end of the '94 season, when Jarrett's departure from Joe Gibbs Racing to the then-greener pastures of Robert Yates racing opened a spot with Gibbs. Bobby had the foresight to see that Gibbs was going to be a winner. In his last three seasons with the former Washington Redskins coach, Bobby has finished seventh, sixth and second in the standings.

 

The zenith for the Labonte family came at Atlanta Motor Speedway in November 1996. Terry, driving with a broken wrist, toughed out a fifth-place finish and held off teammate Gordon to win the Winston Cup championship. Bobby, then in his second year with Gibbs, won the race.

 

As the crackling of fireworks and strains of the Queen classic "We are the Champions" reverberated off the metal garage buildings, the brothers took a partial victory lap side by side and then partied together in Victory Lane with a horde of supporters.

 

"That was probably the most exciting day that I've ever had in racing," Terry says now.

 

Adds Bobby, "One of us wins the championship and the other wins the race, and the whole family is there. That had to be the highlight for us. Other than Christmas dinners."

 

 

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Few drivers are associated with their home states to the extent Terry is with Texas. Terry nods as that point is made.

 

"You can usually tell when someone's from Texas, because they'll usually tell you they're from Texas," he said. "I don't know what it is, but people from Texas are just proud of their state."

 

Terry stays connected to his homeland with a 1,500-acre ranch he owns in McMullen County, about 90 miles west of Corpus Christi. The ranch is for hunting - a lifelong passion - and spending quality time with Justin.

 

Family members scattered throughout South Texas include Bertha Write, Martha's 95-year-old mother, and several uncles, aunts and cousins to Terry and Bobby. Kim, whom Terry met at a Corpus Christi car dealership at age 17, sends most of her family Christmas cards to Texas.

 

The yearly trip to Texas Motor Speedway is circled on the Labontes' calendar the moment the new schedule is released. Next week's race has added meaning because Terry is the defending champion.

 

"When I was growing up in Texas, racing wasn't very popular," Terry said. "I can remember racing at Texas World Speedway in College Station and they had a couple of Winston Cup races [actually eight races between 1969 and '81] that probably drew about 20,000, 25,000 people," Terry said. "Now the sport's grown enough to allow us to race in our home state, and that's special.

 

"Then, to be able to go back last year and win the race, that was really exciting. There were probably 220,000 people there, and 200,000 of them were pulling for me. It was a great feeling."

 

The lyrics from "Deep in the Heart of Texas" played over the TMS loudspeaker system, still echo a year later. Another chapter was added to a Texas legacy.

[HiTech]

thanks i never read this one before ..... as for bob talking aboult the valve problem and shoving mike.s head down in the cylinder ..i was standing two feet away from that going on after helping them push that car out on the track for tecking ....terry did the push .and dad did the look up close part ..and said now does that look like a 283 . i laughed my blank off and never forgot that night ..the man that made that remark sure changed his way of thinking after that ....

[ShortTrackFan]

Great story Mel, thanks for posting. Man you gotta love the Labonte clan.

[rwracingmom]

Excellent article. First time I read this. They are exceptional example of true Texans. Thanks for sharing with us.

[PAPosse]

That's a good read - thanks for posting. Terry was always my favorite driver - and was the first Cup driver I ever met in person at Pocono back in '84. Back in the day at Pocono you could walk up to a chain link fence in the infield, and the haulers in the pits were pulled right up to them on the other side. Terry walked into the trailer, then when he came out I yelled his name and he came over and signed an autograpn and spoke with my uncle and I for a few minutes. It was a different time for sure.