Terry Labonte's distinguished NASCAR career finally came to an end at Texas Motor Speedway on Sunday, the series veteran bowing out with a lowly 36th place finish after a tough event.
The two-time Cup Series champion reached the end of his 'Shifting Gears' farewell tour on home soil in Fort Worth, after 25 full-time seasons and at the age of 49. Labonte, whose younger brother, Bobby, continues to compete, has run a part-time schedule for Hendrick Motorsports over the past two years, as well as being tempted into extra 2006 appearances for the new Hall of Fame Racing team, but will now definitely hang up his helmet and retire to his Texas ranch.
One of only 14 drivers to win multiple Cup Series titles, in 1984 and 1996, Labonte bowed out at the wheel of a #44 Kellogg's Chevrolet that commemorated his twelve race wins with the Hendrick team, but was unable to produce a farewell run to remember.
"It was near as good as we had hoped for, but I knew our car was a little bit too loose in practice yesterday," he said after the chequer had fallen on his final 316 laps, "We made some changes on it, but we didn't make near enough I guess. It was so bad I decided we needed to come behind the wall and work on it a little bit because I didn't want to tear it up."
The race followed a weekend of commemoration for Labonte's achievements in the sport, with his daughter giving the 'start your engines' command, and son Justin - himself a NASCAR racer - completing a parade lap alongside dad in one of his old cars.
"It was a pretty cool and really awesome day," Labonte Sr admitted, "I looked over at Justin and I looked at [the old] car and said 'man, be careful of that thing', because it didn't look like it could go that fast. But it was really pretty cool that, before the race, the car was sitting there and all the guys came up looked at it. The other drivers couldn't believe how the cars used to look back in the '80s.
"That was the car that I won the 1980 Southern 500 with. I think that car was probably built in '79. They've come a long way and the safety features are completely different. That car really didn't have much other than the seat belts and roll bars, so NASCAR has done a great job. That was a pretty good look if you wanted to look at both cars there beside each other."
Labonte was quick to pay tribute to the man who gave him his shot at the big time, Billy Hagan, who attended the race to honour his protege's retirement.
"It was really cool," he said of Hagan's presence, "There's so many guys across the country that have as much talent - or more than - I ever had and I was just in the right place at the right time and met Billy. He gave me the opportunity of a lifetime, to be able to move to North Carolina and drive in the NASCAR series, which was the Winston Cup Series back then. It was just a real opportunity of a lifetime. When I went over there, I never figured I might run more than one or two races and then it was three or four. It's amazing we came this far. I never really knew what to expect. I never took anything for granted. I just did my best week after week."
