A fresh generation of talented, young racers emerged as the stars of the NASCAR Cup Series during the 2000s, setting the stage for newcomers such as Bobby Labonte, Tony Stewart, Matt Kenseth, Kurt Busch and Jimmie Johnson to headline America’s most popular motorsports series.
Driving the No. 18 Joe Gibbs Racing Pontiac, Labonte logged four victories, including the Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, en route to the 2000 Cup Series title. He earned 19 top-five finishes and 24 top-10 results to claim his only Cup Series crown, joining his brother, two-time champion Terry Labonte, among NASCAR’s elite drivers.
“We felt good all year,” Labonte said. “In 1999, I made one mistake at Sonoma that cost me the chance to be a contender, but we were so fast all year we knew something good would happen. Then in 2000, I cleaned up all of my mistakes. I took the point lead at Rockingham (N.C.) in the second or third race of the year. We were finishing laps and finishing races.
“Some years it was such a grind but 2000 just wasn’t. Media members were asking me if was getting nervous and I really wasn’t. I just felt confident that we could continue our great season. We were winning and having great races. We won it a race early at Homestead and then went to Atlanta. That was our year.”
As teams rolled into Daytona Int’l Speedway to begin the 2001 schedule with the Daytona 500, there was great optimism, especially with Dale Earnhardt, who finished second to Labonte in points the previous season.
However, the seven-time Cup Series champion died in an accident on the last-lap of the race, stunning millions of fans around the world.
Earnhardt’s death was the fourth in a series of fatalities, following three separate accidents during the 2000 campaign.
Adam Petty, the fourth generation of the Petty family, and driver Kenny Irwin died in crashes two months apart at New Hampshire Int’l Speedway. Tony Roper was killed later in the year in a crash during a Truck Series race at Texas Motor Speedway. All four died of basal skull fractures.
After winning the 2001 Cup Series crown, Jeff Gordon spoke very eloquently about Earnhardt in the January 2002 issue of NASCAR Illustrated.
“Unfortunately, in this type of sport, I’ve lost friends, people who have been great race car drivers,” Gordon said. “None to that level of what Dale Earnhardt was though. Unfortunately, we are pushed and kind of in demand to move on. It’s not always what you want to do. You look at Dale’s death and you look at the next week and we were at Rockingham (N.C.) racing.
“I got a chance to race side-by-side with him. I was fortunate, even in 1993 (Gordon’s rookie season) at the front with him. I wanted somehow to honor Dale. I had so much respect for him. And what he could do on the track and what he could do off the track.”
Tony Stewart enjoyed the decade of the 2000s, the most successful stretch of his driving career. The Columbus, Ind., native earned 33 of his 48 Cup Series victories between 1999 and 2009 and two of his three Cup Series championships with Joe Gibbs Racing in 2002 and ’05.
Also, Stewart collected his biggest victories at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, winning the Brickyard 400 in 2005 and ’07.
Leonard Wood, a longtime crew chief with Wood Brothers Racing, has worked with many of the greatest drivers in NASCAR history. Wood feels Stewart was one of the best.
“Sometimes drivers don’t win all the time because the chassis setups don’t fit them,” Wood said. “As far as driving the car, if the chassis was right, he would be in the winner’s circle. He knew how to enter and exit the corner and knew how to work traffic. Tony was just a great race car driver. If he didn’t win, there was something wrong with the car.”
Stewart drove for JGR from 1999 through 2008 before joining forces with team owner and businessman Gene Haas in 2009. Just after being named as an inductee into the NASCAR Hall of Fame in May 2019, Stewart discussed his decision to form Stewart-Hass Racing.
“There’s been a lot of moments where Joe (Gibbs) was more than patient with me,” Stewart told NASCAR.com. “I remember how frustrated and mad and upset he was about it. But then I said, ‘This is my opportunity to be like you,’ and that stopped it all with him being mad.
“I think he was still frustrated, but I don’t think he was mad anymore. That was a moment that was just the two of us that day. What do you say when you tell someone you’re trying to be like them? What are they going to tell you, no don’t be like me?”
Gibbs also remembered that moment.
“At that point, I was upset,” Gibbs said in the NASCAR.com article. “You don’t really want to lose somebody like that that who was such a key part to what we were doing. I think when he first said that to me, my reaction was I was disappointed, upset and then the more we thought about it, you do realize the opportunity he was offered.
“I will say this … I think it’s one of the key teams in support of NASCAR now,” added Gibbs. “What they’ve done over there has been good for our sport.”
Stewart added a third Cup Series championship in 2011 with Stewart-Haas Racing. An additional 15 victories came before his retirement in 2016.
In 2003 and ’04, Kenseth and Busch gave team owner Jack Roush back-to-back Cup Series championships.
Kenseth logged one win, 11 top-five finishes and 25 top-10 efforts. Busch, meanwhile, won three times and earned 10 top-five results and 21 top-10 finishes en route to his title.
Come 2006, Johnson, in his fifth full Cup Series season with Hendrick Motorsports, began an impressive run of championship seasons with crew chief Chad Knaus. The two won the title that season, as well as in 2007, ’08, ’09 and ’10. All told during those seasons, Johnson recorded 35 of his 83 career victories, 81 top-five finishes and 117 top-10 runs. Johnson and Knaus made winning Cup Series titles look easy, even though they certainly were not.
Johnson earned two more titles (2013 and ’16) and joined Richard Petty and Dale Earnhardt as the only seven-time champions in NASCAR’s storied history.
Hall of Fame crew chief Ray Evernham, who won three Cup Series titles with Gordon, said the relationship between Johnson and Knaus was the key to their success.
“Jimmie and Chad were both very committed to what they were doing and both realized they had what the other needed and vice-versa to be successful,” Evernham said. “Jimmie saw Chad’s commitment and Chad saw Jimmie’s commitment, and each one knew they were the pieces they needed to make it work.
“When you’re building a winning team, the person you’re building with adds to that. You hear how the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. Both of them being so committed made each other better.”
Today’s drivers were watching.
Born Dec. 4, 1992, Ross Chastain was 10 years old when Gordon was the reigning Cup Series champion in 2002.
“I was a fan of Jeff’s because he was winning races,” Chastain said. “He had the brightest car, that Rainbow Warrior car. A lot of other fans were fans of the 3 car (Dale Earnhardt) but I was a 24 guy. I remember the first time he said my name in passing at a short track. He said, ‘Hi Ross’ and I said, ‘Holy cow. Jeff Gordon knows my name.’ I was part time in the Xfinity and Truck Series stuff then.”
Daniel Hemric, driver of the No. 31 Kaulig Racing Chevrolet, was in Earnhardt’s camp.
“I was a huge Dale Earnhardt fan,” Hemric said. “We are all guilty of following who our parents and grandparents pulled for, whether it was sports teams or drivers or whatever. I have vivid memories as a kid at 5 years old of watching Earnhardt and the Bristol Night race when Earnhardt turned Terry Labonte in those races back in the 1990s. He was kind of my guy.”
From 2000 to 2010, NASCAR Cup Series competitors also experienced radical chan
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