ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, April 18, 1996 TAG: 9604180015
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: MARTINSVILLE
SOURCE: JACK BOGACZYK STAFF WRITER
You would expect there might be more Petty jealousy about what Terry Labonte will accomplish Sunday afternoon at Martinsville Speedway.
As Baltimore shortstop Cal Ripken gamely climbed toward Lou Gehrig's record of 2,130 games played in recent baseball seasons, more than a few suggested that breaking the Iron Horse's long-standing feat of longevity standard bordered on foul.
So, with his 514th consecutive Winston Cup start in the Goody's 500, Labonte may eclipse a record owned by Richard Petty. Labonte is bumping ``The King'' of NASCAR, and he's lapping him on a track where Petty earned 15 of his record 200 Winston Cup victories. Surely, some in the sport are in the pits about this, right?
Not really. Labonte is secure about his place in NASCAR history. His feat is the kind that would figure to be celebrated by his visage on a Wheaties' box - except that he drives the No.5 Kellogg's Corn Flakes Chevrolet for Hendrick Motorsports. So, he's on a commemorative series of boxes of that cereal.
If Petty remains on a pedestal, as he should, then the 5-foot-8 Labonte just wants to stay in the seat of whatever he happens to be driving at the time. He just loves to drive. He's running 18 Busch Grand National races in his own Bayer Chevrolet this season, too.
``You start out in your career, and you do what you're doing, and you don't think of something like this,'' Labonte said on a telephone conference call with reporters as he approached last Sunday's record-tying and victorious run at North Wilkesboro. ``This is probably the one record that I would never have thought about, and I didn't until a year or two ago when people started bringing it up.
``And then, to break Richard Petty's record. I mean, he is stock car racing. It's an honor to be mentioned in the same paragraph with Richard Petty, much less to be compared to him.''
Streaky start
There was little hint that Labonte ever would approach the milestone when the streak began Jan. 14, 1979 in the Winston Western 500 at Riverside International Raceway. Labonte, in the No.44 Stratograph Chevy, blew an engine, lasted only seven of 199 laps, and won $1,000 for a 35th-place finish.
That was almost $11 million ago, a winnings figure Labonte eclipsed with Sunday's First Union 400 victory. When the streak began, Winston Cup was the Grand National circuit. Dale Earnhardt had just started a season he would finish as Rookie of the Year. Labonte's Winston Cup brother, Bobby, was 14 then.
Jeff Gordon, like Labonte that weekend, also was in California - in the second grade.
Labonte has driven his streak in Chevrolet, Ford, Oldsmobile and Buick, for 11 different crew chiefs, including current pit bull Gary DeHart, who was a member of Labonte's 1984 Winston Cup points title team, too. In 17 complete NASCAR seasons, he's finished in the top 10 in the points standings 13 times. During the streak, he has driven about 150,000 laps. Married less than a year before the streak began, he's become a father twice during it.
``He really hasn't changed a whole lot,'' said Pete Wright, a Rocky Mount native who teamed with Labonte for 11-years before becoming shop foreman for Darrell Waltrip's Western Auto-sponsored team. ``Terry's a quiet person. When you get to know him, he's still quiet, but he's more outgoing. He's not out there trying to blow smoke up people's butts.
``He has little things he says and does that make people laugh, but I guess most people would say Terry has a dry personality. He's always thinking. I guess some people might think he's a snob, but most people would just say he's shy.
``He's not a person who needs the limelight. There are drivers who would be out there telling everybody they're going to break Petty's record. I think it's a real big deal. He might think it's a big deal, but he doesn't need to tell people that. Terry is just happy being Terry.''
Wright said some of Labonte's stoicism perhaps is rooted in his native state of Texas, which was a foreign land to NASCAR when he arrived. ``Most of the drivers then were from North and South Carolina and Virginia,'' Wright said. ``Terry didn't know many people. I think it also may have helped him because he wasn't awed by all of it, not being from the Southeast.''
If there is a misconception about Labonte about the streak, he knows what it is.
``I think people probably think of me as being old, or older,'' said Labonte, 39. ``I started young and I've been lucky to have been with good teams and in the kind of equipment it takes to win in this sport.''
In a strange land
Labonte was 21 when Louisiana oilman Billy Hagan was seeking a driver to replace Skip Manning in the Duck Industries ride in 1978. Labonte met Hagan at Myers Speedway in Houston, where the Corpus Christi, Texas, native was winning. Labonte was hired, and his first race was Labor Day weekend of that year, in the Southern 500. He qualified 19th and finished fourth, behind Cale Yarborough, Waltrip and Petty.
``Billy Hagan gave me the opportunity to run five races in '78, but, you know, the thing I think helped me was I didn't know about all the tradition at Darlington, and how tough a racetrack it was.
``I'll never forget, I went in there and they had a rookie meeting, like they always do at Darlington, and they showed a video, and there was the car that I was driving, the No. 92 at the time. It was Billy's car, and that car had made the highlight of all of the crashes in the previous race.
``I sat there and just kind of cringed every time I saw that car up there on the TV. I said to myself, `Whatever you do, don't make next year's highlight film, so I went out there and just tried to stay out of trouble. Ran all night long and still wound up losing.''
How long ago was that? Christiansburg's Ronnie Thomas was the Rookie of the Year that season. Yarborough won the last of his three straight points championships for Junior Johnson, for whom Labonte would drive for three years almost a decade later.
It was also at Darlington where Labonte won for the first time in Winston Cup, his 59th race, in the 1980 Southern 500. His remarkable streak somehow includes only 17 career victories, seven of those in the past two-plus season for Hendrick's team. In his 518 career starts, Labonte has 138 top-5 finishes (26.6 percent), and 267 top-10 performances (51.5 percent).
Those, like his record-to-be, speak of consistency.
``He's like that as a person, too,'' Wright said. ``Terry is always the same. We're still close friends, always will be, I hope. When I started with him in 1981, there weren't six people who worked on those cars. It's changed over the years, and the sport has changed, but Terry's the same. He never forgets his buddies, the people who have been with him, like some drivers have.
``There are people I know who have worked for a driver in the past, and they might walk up to the guy, and the driver will treat them just like any other fan. He won't remember them. Terry not only remembers people, he asks about them, about how they're doing. I've always felt like if one of Terry's buddies really needed him, he'd be there.''
Back in Victory Lane
The streak of 513 consecutive starts is a product of more than consistency. Labonte has gotten some provisional starts over the years, and a bad wreck in 1982 at Riverside came at the right time, if any accident does. It was in the last race of the 1982 season that Labonte broke a leg, foot, his nose and a few ribs.
He's driven for sponsors that no longer exist. When he won the Winston Cup title in 1984, Labonte was piloting the Piedmont Airlines Chevy. He's run with Budweiser and Busch, for Sunoco and Skoal, and now Kellogg's. It is with the Hendrick team that Labonte has relieved some of his frustration about just coming close to Victory Lane.
``I think all of that did frustrate him to a point, but it never got Terry done,'' Wright said. ``He just kept running. He only had the one win until he finally got one in '83 [at Rockingham in the fall], and then in '84, he won the championship. Then, he switched to Junior's team.
``He's always run good. He's a guy who takes care of the equipment, always gets to the front and wants to finish races. By far, the Hendrick's deal gave him the best chance he's ever had to win, and it's shown. When we sat down and talked about it in 1993, he'd been with Billy [Hagan] for a second timer, and I told him my opinion was that he had to move. Hendrick was the opportunity of a lifetime.''
Labonte was winless for four years before winning in the spring of '94 at North Wilkesboro after joining Hendrick. He has a contract with the Hendrick team through 2000, which, if he keeps running will put him at more than 650 consecutive races. And if he doesn't?
Well, if Labonte looks into his rear-view mirror, he'll see a familiar face. Earnhardt, his fellow rookie of long ago, will make his 491st consecutive start Sunday. They are the only Cup drivers to start every race in the '80s and '90s.
``It's a great feeling knowing that we're going to be competitive at nearly every track,'' said Labonte, who in the past five races has finished eighth, fifth and second twice to go with Sunday's victory. ``I think, because we're so competitive, it makes the streak more meaningful.''
If there is an irony to Labonte's record-breaking effort, it is that it will come at a track at which he's hardly been successful.
He became the youngest driver (age 25) in motorsports history to reach $1 million in earnings with a fourth-place finish in the Old Dominion 500 at Martinsville in 1982. But Labonte has finished on the lead lap in only three of 35 Winston Cup starts at the .526-mile oval. However, reflecting his entire career, Labonte has 11 top-5 and 22 top-10 finishes on Clay Earles' asphalt.
In another numerical way besides counting to 514, Labonte will be able to see how far he has driven with his sport. The first time he raced at Martinsville in a Winston Cup car, there were fewer than 25,000 seats. For Sunday's Goody's 500, about 66,000 are expected.
``I've always looked at it as just what I do for a living,'' Labonte said. ``I mean, people get up every day and go to work. That's what I do, too. I get in a car and race every week. It's my job.''
True, but some people don't show up every day. ``I've really never thought of myself as an iron man,'' Labonte said.
Maybe that's because he's been so steely behind the wheel.
LENGTH: Long : 184 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: 1. CHEVROLET MOTORSPORTS Terry Labonte began his streakby CNBJan. 14, 1979, in the Winston Western 500 at Riverside
International Raceway in California. color
2. chart with color photo - Terry Labonte. color STAFF KEYWORDS: AUTO RACING PROFILE