Gibbs expects excitement

Wednesday, Oct. 30, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.

Following Bobby Hamilton's first Winston Cup victory for car owner Richard Petty at Phoenix last Sunday, the strong scent of Pontiac Excitement is wafting through the air.

One of those breathing it in deeply is Joe Gibbs, the former Super Bowl coach turned Winston Cup and NHRA car owner. Hamilton's win bodes well for the minority Winston Cup Pontiac runners, which next year will include Gibbs' No. 18 Interstate Batteries car driven by Bobby Labonte. The coach recently announced he will switch from Chevrolet to Pontiac for 1997.

"We're GM all the way but this (the switch) kind of came from inside GM themselves," Gibbs said Tuesday, during a Las Vegas appearance at the Shell Marketers convention. Shell is the primary sponsor on Gibbs' Busch Grand National car and an associate sponsor on his Winston Cup and NHRA cars. "We did the wind tunnel testing for (Pontiac) and our drag racing cars already are Pontiacs, so it was a natural (progression).

"Analyzing it, I think we'll get more attention (from the factory) next year. With Chevy, there are certain teams (entrenched). Obviously, there's the Goodwrench Chevy with (Dale) Earnhardt that has won eight championships and you've got (Rick) Hendrick (who fields cars for points leaders Terry Labonte and Jeff Gordon), who has 80 Chevrolet dealerships. They've got a pretty good group stacked over there."

By comparison, there only are a handful of Pontiac teams.

"We loved it with Chevy; they were great to us and we got five wins over there," Gibbs said. "But after the (wind tunnel) test and everything, we felt this will probably be better for our program."

The program starting coming together for Gibbs and company during the last third of the Winston Cup season. Labonte has had a top-5 car in several recent outings, including last week at Phoenix, where he qualified on the pole and finished eighth, falling back in the closing laps.

Gibbs said in NASCAR, top 5 remains a reasonable goal.

"It's so competitive -- there are 40 losers and just one winner, so you've got to be there (in contention) every week," he said. "We're hoping that's what's going to happen to us in this next race (next weekend's season finale at Atlanta), and then hopefully next year with the Pontiac, start out with a bang."

Although Labonte has not been able to match his success of 1995, the current season hasn't exactly been a washout for the former coach. He is co-owner of the car Jim Yates drove to the NHRA Pro Stock title and his Top Fuel and Funny Car entries, piloted by Cory McClenathan and Cruz Pedregon, each finished third in final points.

In addition, Labonte ran a 16-race Busch Grand National schedule for Gibbs, winning at Nashville.

Between his three drag racing and two NASCAR teams, Gibbs said there's no room for a Craftsman Truck team or any other form of motorized sport on his racing plate.

"We've kind of got our hands full with what we're doing right now," he said about the possibility of starting a truck team. "Anything we can do to enhance the No. 18 car is what we're trying to do. We don't want to add a car simply for the sake of adding one. We only want to add a car if it's going to win."