Bobby Labonte is more worried about quality starts than 596-race consecutive start streak
Bobby Labonte is driving for Robby Gordon Motorsports at New Hampshire Motor Speedway. // Sam Cranston, NASCAR Illustrated
LOUDON, N.H. – When Bobby Labonte starts the 2010 Brickyard 400, he will be making his 600th consecutive start.
Well, for right now, that’s if Labonte starts the 2010 Brickyard 400.
Labonte likely will have a ride for that event – considering he is a past Cup champion (he won the title in 2000) and has access to past champion provisionals. So even if a team isn’t in the top 35, he’d be in the race.
But Labonte was prepared last Monday to see that streak end this weekend. He was prepared to leave TRG Motorsports and the No. 71 car because he couldn’t stomach the start-and-park plan for the organization’s unsponsored races.
He had done three of them and that was enough. He didn’t have a ride until Tuesday afternoon when he got a call from Robby Gordon, who needed someone to drive his car while he went to Argentina on a business trip for his off-road racing team.
“That was a chance I took – I was prepared [to miss a race],” Labonte said in the New Hampshire Motor Speedway garage. “I don’t want to sit out a few weeks no matter if it’s consecutive starts or not. That’s not what I want to do.”
The streak – which includes all but two of his career Cup races – is not that huge a deal to Labonte, who is driving for Gordon this weekend at New Hampshire and then Phoenix Racing the next two weekends at Daytona and Chicago.
Gordon has talked about entering a second car for Labonte at Indianapolis but nothing is certain yet.
“It’s there, but it’s not like one of those things I’ve got to sit there and say, ‘Hey, I’m only doing it because of that,’” Labonte said about the streak. “I’m doing this because of the passion I have for it and what I want to do.
“The streak is fine, but it is what that is. If you race all the races and you’re competitive to do whatever you can sit in and do the right things for the right people and be competitive and build whatever you can build to be better the next week, then the numbers just kind of happen.”
Labonte is driving for a sixth Cup team as part of the streak, which includes 21 Cup victories. He drove for two seasons for Bill Davis Racing then 11 for Joe Gibbs Racing, three for the Pettys and then for Hall of Fame Racing (in a car operated by Yates Racing) and TRG last year.
This year, he struggled with TRG as the team didn’t post one top-20 finish in the first 16 races. It started-and-parked three times.
“It just wasn’t working out,” Labonte said. “I needed to go for the future of those guys and myself. We had already done [start-and-park] three times. It’s unfortunate for them. They didn’t want to do it. It’s just how it worked out. … It just burns a hole in my stomach. That was tough.”
It is possible that Labonte will drive for TRG Motorsports in a few races later this year if the races are fully funded. Beyond that, he is not sure what will happen for him after Chicago and into 2011.
“It’s pretty early in the year to be looking,” Labonte said. “It’s good to be looking that far ahead but we’re not quite there yet [where teams are deciding for 2011].”
