In 1987, Bobby Labonte won the late model stock track championship at Caraway Speedway in Sophia, N.C. Thirty-four years later, after scoring 21 NASCAR Cup Series victories and the 2000 series championship as part of a Hall of Fame career, he was back at the 0.455-mile oval to kick off the 2021 season with the Southern Modified Auto Racing Tour.
“When you’re with a group of people and you’re trying to accomplish something, whether it’s winning on the modified series or the Cup Series, it’s still the same feeling and driving is something I still have a passion for,” Labonte told SPEED SPORT.
He has driven a wide range of vehicles in his career, but believes the modified really has no comparison, other than some elements of a shifter kart or dirt late model.
“You’ve got to drive the heck out of it,” Labonte said. “To me, it’s got plenty of motor, its power-to-weight ratio is awesome, it sits on the ground, it sounds amazing and is a lot of fun.”
He first got behind the wheel of one of the ground- pounders at historic Bowman Gray Stadium in Winston-Salem, N.C., driving for 10-time track champion Burt Myers. Then as SMART was being resurrected in 2020, Labonte was asked by car owner Mike Smith to drive the No. 25 modified during the season-ending race at South Carolina’s Florence Motor Speedway.
Labonte sat on the pole and finished fourth, and soon the duo struck a deal to compete on a nearly full-time basis with sponsor Cook Out. They are hoping to run 10 or so races with SMART this season and perhaps also race on occasion at Bowman Gray and in the NASCAR Whelen Modified Series event at Richmond in the fall.
The SMART sanctioning body was founded in the fall of 1988 and served as a home for tour-type modifieds in the Southeast for close to two decades before it became the NASCAR Whelen Southern Modified Tour for 2005.
When that series merged with its northern counterpart a dozen years later, the Southern Modified Racing Series sanctioned touring modified races in the region before SMART made a return in 2020. Thirteen events are on the docket this year, with most taking place in the spring and fall to avoid conflicts at Bowman Gray.
Labonte, whose résumé includes victories in the Coca-Cola 600, Brickyard 400 and Southern 500, along with the completion of 99.9 percent of all the laps in his championship season, not only brings star power to the series, but is as tough as ever behind the wheel.
At the end of May, he was fourth in the standings with one top-five effort and two top-10 finishes through four races, including a runner-up result at Florence.
He’s also enjoying going back to tracks around the Carolinas and Virginia where he raced as he rose through the ranks. He originally began racing go-karts and quarter midgets while living in his hometown of Corpus Christi, Texas, but became a late model racer in the Southeast as older brother Terry competed in the Cup Series.
“I know now how much grassroots racing means to the Cup Series and Truck Series and Xfinity Series,” he said. “Not everybody does it the same way, but I just feel like there’s something to good, fun grassroots racing. The people that are racing might be doing it for their career or as a hobby, and there’s a group of people that are using it for a stepping-stone to get to the next level.”
He looks at racing on local short tracks as a way to give back to grassroots racing, while at the same time fulfilling his need for competition.
However, for Labonte, now 57, racing modifieds is just one of many endeavors he’s undertaken since leaving the Cup Series.
In addition to his commitment to SMART, he’s racing in the Superstar Racing Experience series, contributing often as an analyst to “NASCAR RaceHub” and “NASCAR RaceDay” with FOX Sports, and serving clients through his marketing agency, Breaking Limits, which he runs with his wife, Kristin.
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