Bobby Labonte AGE: 38 BIRTHDATE: May 8, 1964 HEIGHT: 5'9" WEIGHT: 170 lbs. HOMETOWN: Corpus Christi, TX RESIDENCE: Trinity, N.C. WIFE: Donna CHILDREN: Robert Tyler, Madison Elizabeth Primary Sponsor: Interstate Batteries Primary Series: Winston Cup Team: Joe Gibbs Racing Make: Chevrolet Crew Chief: Michael McSwain For Bobby Labonte, the 2003 NASCAR Winston Cup season will hopefully provide a resurgence of sorts for the former Winston Cup champion. In a season that was more like a roller-coaster ride than a championship caliber campaign, Labonte experienced many difficult times during the 2002 season as he finished a disappointing 16th in the final point standings. His lowest finish in the standings since joining Joe Gibbs Racing at the beginning of the 1995 season. The 2003 season however promises to be one of excitement on many different fronts for Labonte and the Interstate Batteries Racing Team. "I am very excited about starting with a clean slate this coming season," said Labonte. "I think we experienced every emotion we could last season and went through some definite character building moments that will hopefully provide us with a great foundation this year. I truly believe you create your own luck and we surely did not have any last year. We just missed the mark on a lot of things, but I do feel that we have the pieces of the puzzle to start running at the front of the pack again." Speaking of pieces, Labonte knows the numerous changes made during the second half of the 2002 season and this off-season should make for immediate improvements in not only performance, but consistency as well which is what helped them win the championship in 2000. Besides switching to the new Chevrolet Monte Carlo for the upcoming season, the team is also starting from scratch in the chassis department getting rid of almost every car the team had in the shop in favor of newer chassis' to complete the transition. In addition to the chassis and body changes the team is undergoing during the off-season, the most visible change on pit road will be the addition of Michael McSwain as Labonte's new crew chief. For the first time since joining Joe Gibbs Racing, Labonte will have someone different calling the shots on top of the pit box on Sundays and Labonte is very excited about it. "I am going to miss having Jimmy (Makar) up there in my radio all the time, but this is going to be a good move for all of us," explained Labonte. "Jimmy is still going to be working very closely with us and the #20 car as well as working on a lot of R&D work for the entire operation which he is so good at." "The timing was right and when we had the opportunity to bring Michael aboard, we couldn't pass it up," Labonte continued. ""He and Ricky were able to get that #28 car back to the front their first year over at Yates and we are looking for the same here. We plan on coming out of the box and being a contender every weekend again. Michael is a very driven person and I feel like we have had a good off-season getting to know one another and figuring out what will help get the #18 car back up front." Having first driven competitively at the age of five years old in quarter midgets around his hometown of Corpus Christi, Texas, Labonte wasted little time letting everyone know what a natural he was behind the wheel. While the quarter midget racing continued and expanded over the years, as Labonte grew older the call to race something faster and bigger came in 1978 as Labonte made the move to go-karts. The move was short lived though as Labonte moved with his parents from Texas to North Carolina in 1979 to help support his older brother Terry's budding NASCAR Winston Cup career. So before it even had a chance to flourish, Labonte's young racing career seemed to be over. Or did it? When the opportunity presented itself in 1982, Labonte wasted little time in accepting a job back in racing by sweeping the floors at his brother's shop at Hagan Racing. Working his way up from mopping and sweeping floors, Labonte was part of Terry's NASCAR Winston Cup Series championship team in 1984 there at Hagan Racing. After spending a couple of more seasons at Hagan Racing, Labonte was fired after his brother had quit at the conclusion of the season to go drive for Junior Johnson. "I was working on a race team, making money during the day and moonlighting by working on my late model stock car at night," Labonte said. "At the end of the year, Terry left the team to go drive for Junior Johnson. Hagan's people didn't think it would be a good idea for Terry's brother and father too, to be working on someone else's car so we got fired. I thought since I've got all this time on my hands, I might as well work on my own car and run some more races." In 1987, Labonte went to work for car builder Jay Hedgecock, but during that same time, Labonte was trying his hand at racing again and he even managed to win the track championship at Caraway (N.C.) Speedway in 1987. He continued to race late models at Caraway and began competing in selected Busch Series events in the following years. In 1990, he put together a sponsorship package with Goodmark Foods and ran the entire Busch Series schedule for the first time. That year he finished fourth in the final point standings. In 1991, Labonte scored his first career Busch Series win at Bristol International Raceway and went on to win the 1991 NASCAR Busch Series points championship. In addition to the title, Labonte managed to make his first career NASCAR Winston Cup Series start in June at Dover Downs in a car he owned. He would go on to start one more Winston Cup race in 1991. As 1992 rolled around, Labonte won three more races on the Busch Series and was edged out for his second straight NASCAR Busch Series title by Joe Nemechek by a mere three points. That battle remains the closest points chase in NASCAR Busch Series history. Through a twist of fate, Labonte was chosen by Winston Cup car owner Bill Davis to pilot his #22 Ford Thunderbird following the departure of his Busch Series driver Jeff Gordon, who left to join forces with Rick Hendrick. Labonte ran his first full Winston Cup season in 1993 for Davis and finished runner-up to Gordon for the Rookie of the year honors. The highlight of the team's season was Labonte's first career pole, which came in September at Richmond International Raceway. Labonte spent 1994 as well with Davis before joining Joe Gibbs Racing at the end of the season. In his first year with Gibbs, Labonte won three races, including his first career Winston Cup victory in the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte and also swept both events in Michigan. In addition, he finished 10th in the final point standings. To this day, Labonte continues to say his biggest break in his racing career came when he was fired from Hagan at the conclusion of the 1986 season. In the seventeen years since that fateful day when Labonte was fired and he had to make the choice to either go racing full-time again or to be a mechanic full-time, he has gone on to win 19 NASCAR Winston Cup Series events. On top of that, he is the only driver to have won both a NASCAR Busch Series and NASCAR Winston Cup Series Championship and he and Terry are the only brothers every to have won NASCAR Winston Cup Series championships as well. Most importantly to Labonte though is the fact that he is respected by not just all of his peers with whom he competes against each and every week, but the fans as well. As Labonte looks forward to the 2003 season, don't be surprised to see him make it back into the top-10 final point standings and proving not only to himself, but also to the rest of the world that he made the right decision to go racing full-time again. Taken From: Bobby Labonte Biography Back