Champion Labonte Closes Season with Another Top-Five

Though the 2000 NASCAR Winston Cup Series championship had been wrapped a week earlier at Homestead, Bobby Labonte wanted to add to his already impressive hardware collection and close out the 2000 season on top with a victory in the NAPA 500. Being the defending champion of the race, Labonte wanted to let everyone know that they were not just looking to go out for a Sunday drive. As it turned out, Mother Nature took care of that as the race was postponed until Monday morning.

With a steady rain falling since mid-morning Saturday and most of the day on Sunday, Labonte and crew chief Jimmy Makar knew they were going to have to roll the dice and look over old notes to come up with the set-up for Monday's event. The goal, like it is every week with the Joe Gibbs Racing Team was to lead the most laps and win the event. While they fell a little short of their goals, the day was not a total loss either. Running in the top-five for a majority of the afternoon, Labonte was able to finish fifth for his 19th top-five of the year.

"Well as you can see, we weren't the best car out there today," said Labonte. "But to be able to finish fifth and not have run that much practice with all of the rain we have had here, I am pretty pleased with that. Jimmy (Makar) is real good at keeping notes and we were able to go back find some things we thought might work for us today. The main thing we tried to do was keep the car adjustable all day long. Some segments of the race were better than others, but overall, I am pleased with the race. It's kind of ironic that we finished in the top-five again since we have strived to make sure we are in contention each and every week and that is what made the championship possible this season. Each week we go out with a goal of winning the race, but if that cannot happen then we go for second-place and so on after that. I think we ended up with close to 20 top-five finishes so that says a lot about this team."

When the final numbers were tallied on the 2000 season, Labonte ended up with two pole positions, four race wins, 19 top-five finishes, 24 top-ten finishes and winnings of $4,041,746. And that money total does not include the $3 million that will be presented to Labonte at the year-end awards banquet in two weeks.

In addition to those impressive numbers, Labonte did get to play a big part in another win for the team on Monday. Coming into the NAPA 500, Labonte's engine builder, Mark Cronquist was in second-place in the standings for Engine Builder of the Year Award just two points behind the engine builder for Rusty Wallace. With Labonte's fifth-place finish and Rusty's seventh-place finish the two tied in points and Cronquist through a tie-breaking procedure, won the award.

"We had talked about it before the race." stated Labonte. "We really wanted to go out and not only get this for Mark, but also for Joe Gibbs Racing in general. All of the guys in all of the departments work so hard back there at the shop to make sure Tony and I have what we need to run up front and it is great to see this happen for them. Not only that, we were able to finish off the season without a DNF, which as everyone knows, is the key to finishing up in the point standings. It's fitting that it end up this way with us winning the championship."

Even though the "official" racing season is now over, Labonte will be keeping plenty busy during the off-season. With numerous media appearances on the horizon and the holiday's fast approaching, Labonte knows that it is just the beginning of what will be a very busy 2001 season and he is looking forward to all of the opportunities ahead of him.

"You spend your whole life waiting for an opportunity like this to happen, "smiled Labonte. "I am fortunate to have Terry as an older brother and he has tried to tell me how busy it's going to be, but he also said to make sure I enjoyed it all. We are just starting to get things penciled into the schedule for the banquet week and up through the end January and so far it looks like I will be moving around a lot, but I know there are a lot of people that would love to be in the position I am right now so I do realize how fortunate I am."

Be sure to watch Bobby and the Interstate Batteries Racing Team accept the 2000 NASCAR Winston Cup Series championship live from the world famous Waldorf=Astoria in New York City on Friday, December 8th on ESPN at 8:00 PM (CST).