Call from old friend helped Labonte land at TRG

On Monday, Yates Racing took Bobby Labonte out of the No. 96 Ford it operates for Hall of Fame Racing, for seven of the final 12 races this season.

TRG Motorsports crew chief Slugger Labbe, who had formerly worked with Terry Labonte's family-run Busch Series operation, called Bobby and then suggested TRG owner Kevin Buckler call the 2000 Cup Series champ.

The result was Buckler hiring Bobby Labonte to drive TRG's No. 71 Chevrolet in those seven events.

Labonte

"I see an opportunity for a past champion that has some good racing left in him, to put him in a position with a little team where we're all going to rally around him," Buckler said. "I don't know that he got that before. We want to rally around Bobby and to give him a good ride, and if we give him a good ride I think he'll bring some good things to the team.

"Slugger told me to call [Bobby], I did and we had a great conversation. [Bobby] told me all the reasons why he felt performance had not been where he'd like it this year and it sounds like a lot of the areas where he thought things weren't as good as they could have been, are good with us.

"We've got a tight little team and obviously we don't rely too much on computer modeling and schematics that are handed to us by an engineer from 1,000 miles away. We do everything at the track and we give the driver a lot of feedback.

"We've got a really strong team chemistry. We're a tight little group of guys. It's the boys' club thing with us, and Bobby's our boy, now -- and we're going to make him shine. I think it'll be mutually beneficial and we're feeling that already."

Buckler said there were a couple compelling reasons to put Labonte into his car at Atlanta, and what seemed to be the most obvious to outsiders unfamiliar with the rulebook, a possible guaranteed starting spot via a champion's provisional, wasn't one of them.

"Number one, it's his all-time best track in terms of number of wins. We knew the champion's provisional wasn't on the table because he wasn't [entered by the deadline] so that never entered into it," Buckler said. "Bobby brings a lot of experience and with the team starting up, we've got [veterans] Slugger and [team manager] Mike Brown and we've got a new chief marketing officer coming on board that everyone knows that will be a big announcement next week.

"So with Bobby, it's kind of been one brick at a time and we're building a strong wall here. I saw someone with a ton of experience, a champion and a people person and a guy who I know also has some interest in sports car stuff and it wouldn't be out of the question to talk to him about doing something at the Rolex 24."