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Genes and Machines
BY NATE RYAN
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER Feb 13, 2005
A changing of the cars has begun.
In an unmarked race shop right off I-85 near Trinity, N.C., a 2004 Busch Series car swallows up most of the front lobby, towering over a red quarter-midget from the 1950s. A prominently placed line of six trophies from Caraway Speedway, five race wins and a track championship, deflect attention from a glass cabinet at the back of the room where two Winston Cups are hidden.
The shop belongs to Terry Labonte. Its prime display space belongs to Justin Labonte.
And as the father steps back from a vaunted career while the son steps forward in his, that's just the way it should be.
"I've said before my No.1 priority was to help Justin with his career," Terry Labonte said. "And it still is."
For someone re-evaluating what matters most in life -- as the pursuit that always did comes to an end -- he is not alone.
Labonte, Rusty Wallace, Mark Martin and Bill Elliott will be gone completely from the Nextel Cup circuit within the next two years. Besides victories, pole positions, championships, age (46-49) and a lifetime membership on the list of NASCAR's 50 greatest drivers, a common denominator exists: doting dads and the sons who covet hot wheels of their own. During the offseason, Justin Labonte, 24, called a two-time champion after every test session with his new Labonte-Haas Motorsports Coast Guard team.
Steve Wallace beat out 114 of the country's best short-track drivers to capture Pensacola's prestigious Snowball Derby that his father never won in nine tries, and Rusty Wallace Inc. will be backing the 17-year-old.
Matt Martin, 13, is tearing up ovals around Florida and sharing victory lane smiles with his father, Mark, while working the FASTRUCK FastKids Series.
Chase Elliott is just getting started, but the 9-year-old's go-karting was the highlight of his father's first part-time Cup season since 1982.
. . .
"The absolute most fun I had [last year] was spending time with Chase watching him run his go-kart," Elliott said. "Spending time with him growing up is what I missed so much with my other kids growing up. It's more a part of being able to watch them grow. That was a lot of fun for me.
"It's just you finally get to the point where you say, 'Hey, I can give this up and go do something else.' It weighs on one side having the kids and wanting to spend more time with them."
Elliott kicked off the trend in 2004 by eschewing the weekly grind of 36 races for six. Labonte is following suit with a two-season farewell tour of 10 races apiece beginning this month.
Wallace and Martin are quitting cold turkey, making the 2005 season their last.
None will concede their sons' burgeoning careers are the No.1 reasons for reducing races.
"I just want to make sure that it's clear that my son's career has absolutely no impact on what I'm doing," Martin said.
But . . .
"But he does," Martin continued. "One of the biggest reasons that I've made this decision is that I can spend more time with [wife] Arlene and Matt, so that when there is a crisis in my family, I'm not excused. That has bothered me. I spend a lot of weekends sitting by myself, wishing I was somewhere else. So I'm doing something about it."
. . .
Ned Jarrett might have been the first high-profile driver who walked away from a significant earnings potential and cited his family as a major motive.
Few have followed, but that could be changing as Cup grows into a series with drivers on virtual 24-hour standby for testing and sponsorship commitments in addition to the demands of race weekends.
Lowe's Motor Speedway President H.A. "Humpy" Wheeler said the current retirement wave partially stems from lessons learned on a dark day at Daytona International Speedway in 2001.
"The tragedy of Dale Earnhardt's death is the fact we saw him getting reborn as a racing enthusiast when Junior came along," Wheeler said. "When it got to the point that 'Yeah, that kid can race and is going to win some races,' you could see it lift him up.
"There's a lot of genetics in racing; it's what fathers and sons do. It's like a farmer teaching his son how to farm."
The racing gene is entering its third generation at Wood Brothers Racing. Co-owners Eddie and Len Wood have sons working their way up the ladder.
"When drivers have kids who are coming up, some of the focus shifts off of them and to the kids to get them going," said Len Wood, whose son, Keven, will move into Late Models around Virginia and North Carolina this year. "That's natural.
"If I've got a weekend off, it's not, 'Let's go to the mountains' or 'Let's go to Virginia,' it's 'Where's Keven racing this weekend and how can I get to it?' Free time for me is going to watch him drive."
. . .
Several Cup drivers in their 40s have kids itching to race. Joe Nemechek has been impressed by his 7-year-old's performance on dirt tracks. Bobby Labonte's son and daughter are learning quarter-midgets on a track he built.
The youth movement enveloping 21st-century NASCAR has pushed the starting age for getting serious about a stock car career into the preteen years.
"He's getting to the point now where if he wants to continue to race, I'll be there to help him and guide him," Elliott said of Chase. "When you've been a competitor for a lot of years, it's a lot of dedication, a lot of work and a lot of time away from home."
While making his last bid at a Cup championship, Martin will attend only about 10 of his son's races. Without full-time tutelage but with full backing, Matt Martin is doing fine. He signed a developmental contract with Ford two years ago, shortly after turning 11.
"I want him to be happy and do whatever he loves," Martin said. "And I want him to be good at whatever he does. It's way too early for him to decide at this point what he's going to do with his life."
. . .
There never was a doubt with Steve Wallace, who builds his shocks, paints his cars and drives the team truck in the do-it-yourself style Rusty Wallace employed in rising to stardom from the short tracks of the Midwest.
He also talks like his father, tossing around slang terms such as "hot rod."
"There's no slowing Stephen down," said Rusty Wallace, whose company also will field ARCA and Busch cars for Steve. "So that's what he's going to be, and I'm going to support him."
Justin Labonte wouldn't have landed his first full-time Busch ride without family support. He won in Late Models and Busch with the mechanical aid of his grandfather, Bob, who also helped Bobby and Terry Labonte prepare championship cars.
Both teams operated out of the shop owned by Terry Labonte, who also helped with funding.
"I told Justin more than once I didn't care if he raced or not," Labonte said. "But if he did, I told him I would help as much as I possibly could."
The car in the lobby is the one Justin drove to last July's victory at Chicagoland Speedway that helped secure a deal to merge Labonte Motorsports with Haas CNC Racing, a top-10, Hendrick Motorsports-affiliated team.
It was the first race Terry Labonte watched his son win in more than a decade.
"I was just gone all the time," he said. "I didn't know what to say. It's no different if you're going to a basketball game or a swim meet, and you're watching your kid thinking, 'Oh God, I just hope they do great.' It makes you feel so good when they accomplish something.
"To see Justin win that race, it meant so much because I know how hard it is."
With 26 fewer races, Labonte will have plenty more opportunities to watch this year.
Now that he's cleared space in his schedule, he might need to make more room on his trophy shelf, too.
"My dad has said he's a lot like me in some cases and a lot like Bobby in some cases," Terry Labonte said. "But my dad will tell you what he thinks.
"He told Bobby and I both: 'He's a whole lot better then either one of you all.'"
BY NATE RYAN
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER Feb 13, 2005
A changing of the cars has begun.
In an unmarked race shop right off I-85 near Trinity, N.C., a 2004 Busch Series car swallows up most of the front lobby, towering over a red quarter-midget from the 1950s. A prominently placed line of six trophies from Caraway Speedway, five race wins and a track championship, deflect attention from a glass cabinet at the back of the room where two Winston Cups are hidden.
The shop belongs to Terry Labonte. Its prime display space belongs to Justin Labonte.
And as the father steps back from a vaunted career while the son steps forward in his, that's just the way it should be.
"I've said before my No.1 priority was to help Justin with his career," Terry Labonte said. "And it still is."
For someone re-evaluating what matters most in life -- as the pursuit that always did comes to an end -- he is not alone.
Labonte, Rusty Wallace, Mark Martin and Bill Elliott will be gone completely from the Nextel Cup circuit within the next two years. Besides victories, pole positions, championships, age (46-49) and a lifetime membership on the list of NASCAR's 50 greatest drivers, a common denominator exists: doting dads and the sons who covet hot wheels of their own. During the offseason, Justin Labonte, 24, called a two-time champion after every test session with his new Labonte-Haas Motorsports Coast Guard team.
Steve Wallace beat out 114 of the country's best short-track drivers to capture Pensacola's prestigious Snowball Derby that his father never won in nine tries, and Rusty Wallace Inc. will be backing the 17-year-old.
Matt Martin, 13, is tearing up ovals around Florida and sharing victory lane smiles with his father, Mark, while working the FASTRUCK FastKids Series.
Chase Elliott is just getting started, but the 9-year-old's go-karting was the highlight of his father's first part-time Cup season since 1982.
. . .
"The absolute most fun I had [last year] was spending time with Chase watching him run his go-kart," Elliott said. "Spending time with him growing up is what I missed so much with my other kids growing up. It's more a part of being able to watch them grow. That was a lot of fun for me.
"It's just you finally get to the point where you say, 'Hey, I can give this up and go do something else.' It weighs on one side having the kids and wanting to spend more time with them."
Elliott kicked off the trend in 2004 by eschewing the weekly grind of 36 races for six. Labonte is following suit with a two-season farewell tour of 10 races apiece beginning this month.
Wallace and Martin are quitting cold turkey, making the 2005 season their last.
None will concede their sons' burgeoning careers are the No.1 reasons for reducing races.
"I just want to make sure that it's clear that my son's career has absolutely no impact on what I'm doing," Martin said.
But . . .
"But he does," Martin continued. "One of the biggest reasons that I've made this decision is that I can spend more time with [wife] Arlene and Matt, so that when there is a crisis in my family, I'm not excused. That has bothered me. I spend a lot of weekends sitting by myself, wishing I was somewhere else. So I'm doing something about it."
. . .
Ned Jarrett might have been the first high-profile driver who walked away from a significant earnings potential and cited his family as a major motive.
Few have followed, but that could be changing as Cup grows into a series with drivers on virtual 24-hour standby for testing and sponsorship commitments in addition to the demands of race weekends.
Lowe's Motor Speedway President H.A. "Humpy" Wheeler said the current retirement wave partially stems from lessons learned on a dark day at Daytona International Speedway in 2001.
"The tragedy of Dale Earnhardt's death is the fact we saw him getting reborn as a racing enthusiast when Junior came along," Wheeler said. "When it got to the point that 'Yeah, that kid can race and is going to win some races,' you could see it lift him up.
"There's a lot of genetics in racing; it's what fathers and sons do. It's like a farmer teaching his son how to farm."
The racing gene is entering its third generation at Wood Brothers Racing. Co-owners Eddie and Len Wood have sons working their way up the ladder.
"When drivers have kids who are coming up, some of the focus shifts off of them and to the kids to get them going," said Len Wood, whose son, Keven, will move into Late Models around Virginia and North Carolina this year. "That's natural.
"If I've got a weekend off, it's not, 'Let's go to the mountains' or 'Let's go to Virginia,' it's 'Where's Keven racing this weekend and how can I get to it?' Free time for me is going to watch him drive."
. . .
Several Cup drivers in their 40s have kids itching to race. Joe Nemechek has been impressed by his 7-year-old's performance on dirt tracks. Bobby Labonte's son and daughter are learning quarter-midgets on a track he built.
The youth movement enveloping 21st-century NASCAR has pushed the starting age for getting serious about a stock car career into the preteen years.
"He's getting to the point now where if he wants to continue to race, I'll be there to help him and guide him," Elliott said of Chase. "When you've been a competitor for a lot of years, it's a lot of dedication, a lot of work and a lot of time away from home."
While making his last bid at a Cup championship, Martin will attend only about 10 of his son's races. Without full-time tutelage but with full backing, Matt Martin is doing fine. He signed a developmental contract with Ford two years ago, shortly after turning 11.
"I want him to be happy and do whatever he loves," Martin said. "And I want him to be good at whatever he does. It's way too early for him to decide at this point what he's going to do with his life."
. . .
There never was a doubt with Steve Wallace, who builds his shocks, paints his cars and drives the team truck in the do-it-yourself style Rusty Wallace employed in rising to stardom from the short tracks of the Midwest.
He also talks like his father, tossing around slang terms such as "hot rod."
"There's no slowing Stephen down," said Rusty Wallace, whose company also will field ARCA and Busch cars for Steve. "So that's what he's going to be, and I'm going to support him."
Justin Labonte wouldn't have landed his first full-time Busch ride without family support. He won in Late Models and Busch with the mechanical aid of his grandfather, Bob, who also helped Bobby and Terry Labonte prepare championship cars.
Both teams operated out of the shop owned by Terry Labonte, who also helped with funding.
"I told Justin more than once I didn't care if he raced or not," Labonte said. "But if he did, I told him I would help as much as I possibly could."
The car in the lobby is the one Justin drove to last July's victory at Chicagoland Speedway that helped secure a deal to merge Labonte Motorsports with Haas CNC Racing, a top-10, Hendrick Motorsports-affiliated team.
It was the first race Terry Labonte watched his son win in more than a decade.
"I was just gone all the time," he said. "I didn't know what to say. It's no different if you're going to a basketball game or a swim meet, and you're watching your kid thinking, 'Oh God, I just hope they do great.' It makes you feel so good when they accomplish something.
"To see Justin win that race, it meant so much because I know how hard it is."
With 26 fewer races, Labonte will have plenty more opportunities to watch this year.
Now that he's cleared space in his schedule, he might need to make more room on his trophy shelf, too.
"My dad has said he's a lot like me in some cases and a lot like Bobby in some cases," Terry Labonte said. "But my dad will tell you what he thinks.
"He told Bobby and I both: 'He's a whole lot better then either one of you all.'"