Solid, steady career lands 2-time champion Terry Labonte in NASCAR Hall of Fame

Terry Labonte’s NASCAR Cup career began in 1978 Southern 500 at Darlington (S.C.) Raceway, where he finished fourth. The next week, at Richmond he was seventh. Two weeks later at Martinsville, Labonte finished ninth.

That’s three top-10 finishes in three races for a 21-year-old fresh out of Corpus Christi, Texas. A NASCAR Hall of Fame-worthy career was born.

“Even if they had a hall of fame back then, I never would have thought about being in it,” said Labonte, now 59 and one of five of the sport’s legends who will be inducted into the hall of fame Friday. “For me, it was always week to week, season to season, trying to win races and working toward a championship.”

Labonte would go on to win 22 races in a 37-year career and, more notably, Cup championships in 1984 and ’96. He also had a streak of running 655 consecutive races.

A steady competitor who valued sportsmanship and clean driving, Labonte was respected around the NASCAR garage.

“He was just a solid driver,” said Hall of Famer Richard Petty. “He wouldn’t cause any trouble. He would go out and run his race and win a couple of championships because he was so consistent.

“He was just there, not causing any confusion. He had to be pretty good to accomplish what he did.”

That kind of reputation served Labonte well, but if he had a little more of an edge to him, how many more races might he have won? Was there another championship out there to claim?

“Terry could’ve accomplished even more in his career had he been a little more selfish,” Rick Hendrick – for whom Labonte drove toward the end of his career – told The Associated Press in 2006. “But there’s not a selfish bone in his body. He’s a great talent, but he’s just a great human being. He’ll always do what’s best for the team, even if it puts him in an awkward spot.”

Labonte laughed when reminded of Hendrick’s comment.

“Rick was probably right,” said Labonte, who stopped racing on a full-time basis after the 2004 season. “I probably never complained enough about maybe making some changes on my team – changes that might have needed to have been made. I always tried to work with what we had, as best we could. Looking back, maybe I could have said, ‘Let’s make some changes,’ and we would have done it, moved on and been fine.

“But this is a team sport. We have a lot of guys that work hard and try hard. Sometimes that’s all you can ask for.”

Labonte grew up in Corpus Christi racing quarter-midgets. He started racing stock cars when he was 16 in a ’57 Chevy before moving on to a more up-to-date model Camaro. He would soon move to North Carolina to get closer to the sport.

His first Cup victory came in 1980 at the same track where he made his debut – Darlington – where he finished ahead of all of the stars of that time.

“The toughest guy I had an opportunity to race against was probably Cale Yarborough,” said Labonte. “But it was awesome competing against David Pearson, Bobby Allison, Davey Allison, Buddy Baker, guys like that.”

When Labonte won his first championship four years later, the rest of the top five in the standings included Harry Gant and future Hall of Famers Bill Elliott, Dale Earnhardt and Darrell Waltrip. When Labonte won again in 1996, Gordon was second in the standings.

“I was pretty fortunate to race against all those guys, kind of from different eras,” Labonte said. “They were all fantastic.”

The final race of the 1996 season was in Atlanta. It was a day on which Labonte clinched his second championship and younger brother Bobby won the race. Bobby Labonte would go on to win the title in 2000, making he and Terry the only brothers to win Cup championships until Kyle Busch joined his brother Kurt last season.

Terry Labonte now runs a marketing company in the small town of Archdale near Greensboro. He will be back at work next week after he receives his sport’s highest honor Friday.

“I go in there every day,” Labonte said. “I don’t think things will change that much. I’m not going to change, I know that.”

This story was originally published January 20, 2016 at 5:27 PM with the headline "Solid, steady career lands 2-time champion Terry Labonte in NASCAR Hall of Fame."