THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, May 30, 1995 TAG: 9505300140
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C5 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY BOB ZELLER, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CONCORD, N.C. LENGTH: Medium: 90 lines
While Jeff Gordon was charging into the Winston Cup spotlight during the first five months of 1995, another young driver, Bobby Labonte, was following in his shadow.
But while Gordon's year has been storybook thus far - spectacular success tempered only by a few moderate disappointments - life has treated Labonte like a clawless cat in a guard-dog shack. And he has succeeded in spite of it.
Just as Gordon did a year ago, Labonte won the first race of his career Sunday night in the glittering Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway, beating his brother, Terry, by more than six seconds.
The story of Bobby Labonte's rough road to victory is far more compelling than any of Gordon's 1995 heroics, and it would make a dramatic TV movie, except that the life-and-death shtick doesn't fit Labonte's laconic demeanor at all.
Talk to him about debilitating viruses, broken bones, high-speed crashes and potentially deadly illnesses such as pneumonia, and he shrugs them off, or at least downplays them, even in the midst of battling them.
Labonte has been having the same kind of ordeal-filled yet successful year Davey Allison had in 1992 and Jimmy Spencer had last year. But you would hardly know it.
For example, we didn't learn about the offseason thyroid condition that threatened Labonte's career until just a few weeks ago, when the June issue of Stock Car Racing magazine hit the stands. And even then, the story might never have been written except that it was written by the Rev. Dale Grubba. When asked about his health by a priest, Labonte felt compelled to confess.
Labonte started losing his strength in December, as he prepared to embark on the biggest opportunity of his career - replacing Dale Jarrett as the driver of Joe Gibbs' No. 18 Chevrolet Monte Carlo. By the time he decided to see a doctor, his hands were trembling.
Gibbs sent him to the Mayo Clinic, where doctors prescribed chemotherapy in the form of pills.
``The dosage was just below that requiring isolation,'' he told Grubba. ``It was scary.''
The chemotherapy worked, but Labonte still needed help from David Green, who drives his Grand National car, during the all-important January tests at Daytona.
By February, Labonte was well again. He was sixth-fastest in time trials for the Daytona 500. And during the 500 itself, he was lurking near the front in the late stages of the race when he crashed with only 14 laps to go.
But Labonte bounced right back and finished second, behind Gordon, at Rockingham. He did it again at Atlanta.
Before the Darlington race, however, Labonte got pneumonia. You wouldn't have known it by the way he acted, especially on the track. In the March 26 race, Labonte clawed his way to second on lap 200, avoiding all the mayhem in the year's biggest crash-fest.
Seventeen laps later, he, too, fell in battle. His was the worst crash of the day. He broke the tip off his shoulder bone. Compounding that was a case of double pneumonia.
So if you turn back the clock two months, you will find Bobby Labonte bedridden, feverish and in mind-numbing pain. And yet he crawled out of bed and went to Bristol, where Green relieved him again. He gutted it out on his own at North Wilkesboro to finish 15th. At Martinsville he won the pole and finished 10th. At Talladega he was fifth; at Sears Point he finished a solid 13th.
The week before last, Labonte won the pole for The Winston Select, and he was in contention in the annual all-star race until he was snared when Dale Earnhardt crashed at the beginning of the final segment.
On Sunday, he finally did it. In his winner's interview, when he was asked about his year of turmoil, Labonte said, ``It hasn't seemed like . . .'' He didn't finish the sentence, but you just knew he was trying to say that things like this don't happen to low-key guys like him.
And then he said: ``It has been just a really different, weird situation that I've been through. I can't explain all the mental thoughts I've gone through since January - getting hurt at Darlington, having to get out of the car at Bristol. I haven't really been hurt in a race car, and this year I got hurt. I was sick before that.''
But he's got an old football coach for a boss, and when he limped to the shop on a sore foot the day after his Winston Select crash, the reaction from Gibbs was just the sort of thing that would inspire a fellow like Labonte.
``He said,'' recalled Labonte, `You're not wimping out on me, are you? You'd better not be.' '' ILLUSTRATION: ASSOCIATED PRESS
Bobby Labonte celebrated with his son, Tyler, after winning his
first Winston Cup race Sunday at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
by CNB