Prism Motorsports' Terry Labonte looks to compete in 10 to 12 Cup races
CORNELIUS, N.C. – Two-time NASCAR Cup series champion Terry Labonte retired from driving full time in 2004, but that doesn’t mean he’s ready to throw away his helmet.
Labonte has competed in 44 races in the four years since he retired, and he will attempt to make this year’s Daytona 500 in Prism Motorsports’ No. 66 Toyota.
So far, that’s Labonte’s only scheduled race this year, but things could change.
“I wouldn’t mind running eight or 10 or 12 races, something like that,” Labonte said. “It would depend who it was. I’ve got to know them. I had a blast last year. It was actually fun.”
After returning home from one race weekend last year, Kim Labonte, Terry’s wife, noticed that he had a skip in his step.
“I came home one day, and my wife said, ‘You really had fun, didn’t you?’” Labonte said. “I said, ‘Yeah, it was a blast.’ She said, ‘I could tell. You seem happy.’”
That came after a conversation earlier in the year where Kim told Terry that he needed to find a hobby to give him something to do while retired.
So Terry went and got one, a part-time ride with Petty Enterprises, teaming with younger brother Bobby. But he failed to tell Kim.
“Some friend read it [online] and called her,” Labonte said. “I didn’t tell her. She’s like, ‘Are you going to run some races?’ I said, ‘Yeah.’ She said, ‘You are?’ I said, ‘Well, you told me I need to find a hobby.’”
Labonte insists he’s still retired from full-time competition, saying he doesn’t understand “why anybody would want to run every week.”
And while many drivers or other athletes continue to hang around after retirement, Labonte said he’s still driving simply because he’s having fun.
“I spent so many years of my life doing that,” Labonte said. “It’s hard to walk away and not still like the sport that you always really loved. That’s hard to do. You see other people in other sports. Lance Armstrong, for example. He was so successful, and now he’s going to attempt a comeback.
“People, whenever they love what they do, they have a hard time walking away from it. I never looked at it as a job. You hear so many people say, ‘Man, I can’t wait to retire. I hate this place.’ I never felt that way.
“And then I did retire, and that’s not all it’s cracked up to be. You sit at home, and it’s like, ‘What am I going to do this weekend?’ I about wore my wife out because we’d go somewhere every weekend. She said, ‘I’m staying home.’ It was a real adjustment period there for about a year. I’ve kind of got it figured out now.”
