Bobby Labonte began racing Quarter-Midgets in Texas in 1969, then graduated to karts in 1978. He began his Cup career in 1984 as a crew member at Hagan Racing, where his brother Terry won the series championship. He went to work for car builder Jay Hedgecock in 1987 and also raced Late Model Stock Cars at Caraway Speedway in Asheboro, N.C., winning the track championship with 12 wins and seven poles in 23 races.
Labonte's first career Cup victory came in 1995 in the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte. Later that year, he swept both races at Michigan.
Labonte's 2000 championship season seemed to be charmed, but the Corpus Christi native won the title based on excellence and consistency. Labonte was one of only two drivers to complete the 2000 season with no DNFs.
Labonte set several milestones including becoming the first Nationwide Series champ (1991) to win the NASCAR Cup crown, and becoming part of the first set of brothers, along with 1984 and 1996 champion Terry Labonte, to win the Cup title.
A year later, Labonte quickly found out how fleeting the near perfection of his championship season could be. A tough adjustment to Goodyear's new tire compound package and bouts of bad luck early in the year made Labonte's title defense improbable.
In the end, he fought back to sixth in the standings; but it took him until late July to win his first race of the season. He ended up with two wins, nine top-fives and 20 top-10s, which was well under his production of the previous year. He won one pole award and earned $4,786,779.
The frustration got worse for Labonte in 2002. While he did win at Martinsville in April for his 19th Cup victory, 10 finishes of 30th or worse and seven top-10 efforts in 36 starts relegated Labonte to a 16th-place finish in the standings. He also earned nearly $1 million less than he did the season before.
In 2003, Labonte posted two wins, four poles and an eighth-place finish in series standings.
Labonte came up short of victory twice, with runner-up finishes in 2004 at Darlington in March and Martinsville in April, which broke a nine-year streak of at least one win.
Joe Gibbs Racing and Labonte concluded an 11-year relationship at the end of the 2005 NASCAR Cup Series season. He began driving the No. 43 Dodge for Petty Enterprises starting in 2006.
In 2007, Labonte kept his losing streak, marking the fourth consecutive year without a Cup win. However, he did grab three top 10s and managed to come in 18th position, his best finish since 2004. The 26th race of the 2007 season, at Richmond Int'l Raceway, marked Labonte's 500th career Cup start.
Labonte spent another season with Petty Enterprises in 2008, but with little success again. He only scored two top 10s and finished 21st in the points. At the end of the season, with Petty Enterprises struggling to stay in the Cup Series, Labonte seeked out and received a release from his driving contract so that he could begin to set up another deal.
He joins the Hall of Fame Racing team for 2009 to drive the No. 96 Ford out of the Yates Racing stable. HOF and Yates aligned their two teams after the 2008 season.
