Labonte happy to team with brother at Petty Enterprises
By Bob Pockrass - Associate Editor
Thursday, June 05, 2008
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SCENE ON THE CIRCUIT
Terry Labonte was a teammate to his brother Bobby at Joe Gibbs Racing for five races in 2005. Now they will be teammates again, beginning June 8 at Pocono Raceway, when Terry will drive the No. 45 Petty Enterprises car while Kyle Petty moves to the TNT broadcast booth.
“That was a pretty cool deal there [at JGR] because those cars were pretty good cars,” Labonte said May 27 during a Pocono test session. “It was pretty neat. We were at Sonoma in practice and we were right next to each other. We seemed to be able to share some information – they could do the same thing to his car as they did to mine, and vice versa.
“Hopefully we can have a couple of races where we have a respectable run in it. I would think that it would be pretty tough to run with these guys that do this every week that are on top of their game right now.”
While he misses NASCAR Cup competition, Labonte, 51, doesn’t miss the grueling schedule. He ran his last full season in 2004, but has run some races in every season since then.
“My wife told me I need to find a hobby, and Kyle called a few days after that,” said Labonte, who plans to run five races for the Pettys. “It sounded like a pretty good hobby. … I thought it would be cool to be Bobby’s teammate for a few races.
“I sit at home and watch it, and there’s a lot of weeks I watch them and say, ‘I wish I was there,’ and there are some weeks I watch them and say, ‘I’m glad I’m not there.’”
Labonte, who has 22 career wins, has a past champions provisional that will allow the No. 45 Petty team, which is outside the top 35 in owners points, to qualify for races and concentrate on improving the car. Chad McCumbee failed to make the race at Dover while Petty was at his daughter’s wedding.
“You hate to rely on it, but we have a lot of sponsors that we’re obligated to,” Petty Enterprises Executive Vice President Robbie Loomis said of the provisional. “We need to be able to be here on Sunday for them. We still have a lot of confidence in Chad going forward, but right now it’s nice that we’ll be in there on Sunday and have a veteran giving feedback on what he thinks.”
Labonte got in two days of testing at Pocono to help him learn about the car. He drove the two Cup road-course races last year for Michael Waltrip Racing, but had not driven NASCAR’s new race car on an oval.
“It’s still a learning experience,” he said during the test. “At least we’ve got Bobby to gauge off of and look at his data and stuff like that and see where we need to be better. It was OK for the first day.
“I was a little bit nervous the first time out because I heard so many people complain about these cars. I was like, ‘Oh God, I don’t know if I want to do this or not.’”
Labonte turned down offers earlier in the year to drive for other teams, but the call from Petty was different.
“When Kyle called, I couldn’t tell him no,” Labonte said. “I could tell some other people no pretty easy. But I’ve always looked up to these guys for so long and really admired them.
“And being on the team with Bobby, I thought I had to do this.”
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