Labonte ready to enjoy championship celebrations

Mike Harris

Saturday, Nov. 25, 2000 | 10:08 a.m.

Listening to his big brother over the years has helped Bobby Labonte develop into a champion.

Now that he has reached his ultimate racing goal, Labonte will try to follow another piece of advice offered by two-time champ Terry Labonte.

"You spend your whole life waiting for an opportunity like this to happen," Bobby said with a smile. "I'm fortunate to have Terry as an older brother and he has tried to tell me how busy the next few weeks and the next year are going to be.

"But he also said to make sure I enjoyed it all. We are just starting to get things penciled into the schedule for the banquet week and up through the end January, and so far it looks like I will be moving around a lot. But I know there are a lot of people that would love to be in the position I am right now, so I do realize how fortunate I am."

NASCAR's newest champion will be honored Dec. 8 in New York at the annual awards banquet, where he and his team are expected to collect checks for more than $7 million, including the $3 million bonus to Labonte for winning the title.

Another member of the Joe Gibbs Racing team that will be collecting a big check ($50,000) in New York is engine-builder Mark Cronquist.

Going into last Sunday's season-finale at Atlanta Motor Speedway, Cronquist trailed Larry Wallace, engine-builder for Rusty Wallace, by two points. He was also just one point ahead of Richard Langell, who builds the engines for Jeff Burton.

Labonte gained the title for Cronquist by finishing a solid fifth in the race, barely beating Wallace, who came in seventh. Burton was 12th.

Cronquist and Larry Wallace wound up in a tie for the Clevite Engine Builder Award, but the former won through a tie-breaking procedure involving other top finishes.

"We had talked about it before the race." said Labonte, who had clinched the championship the previous week in Homestead, Fla. "We really wanted to go out and not only get this for Mark, but also for Joe Gibbs Racing in general.

"All of the guys in all of the departments work so hard back there at the shop to make sure (teammate) Tony (Stewart) and I have what we need to run up front and it is great to see this happen for them.

"Not only that," Labonte added, "we were able to finish off the season without a DNF (did not finish), which as everyone knows, is the key to finishing up in the point standings."

In fact, Labonte and runner-up Dale Earnhardt were the only drivers who went through the entire 34-race season without failing to finish. Labonte extending his streak to 45 races, while Earnhardt has gone 36.

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ROOKIE RACING: NASCAR's class of 2000 turned out to be as special as expected, with Matt Kenseth and Dale Earnhardt Jr. leading the way.

Those two had slugged it out the previous two seasons in the Busch Series, with Earnhardt, the son of the seven-time Winston Cup champion, getting the best of it by beating Kenseth for the championship both years.

This year, though, it was Kenseth who took the honors, winning the Rookie of the Year award by leading the first-year standings for the last 26 races of 2000. Despite the fact that Earnhardt Jr. had two victories to only one for Kenseth, the latter beat Little E by 43 points in the rookie race.

The 28-year-old Kenseth, two years older than his main rival, was the highest finishing rookie in 17 of 34 races. He finished with four top-fives and 11 top-10s, was 14th in the points and earned more than $2 million.

By comparison, Earnhardt has three top-fives and five top-10s, was 16th in the season standings and earned just over $2.5 million.

Dave Blaney wound up third in the rookie standings, followed by Stacy Compton, Scott Pruett and Mike Bliss.

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STAT OF THE WEEK: Dale Earnhardt's runner-up finish to Labonte in 2000 marked the 14th time in his 22-year career that The Intimidator has wound up in the top five in the standings. Eleven of those have finishes have been in the top three.

In fact, the elder Earnhardt has finished in the top 10 in the points in 20 of those 22 years. But this was his best finish since taking the runner-up spot to Jeff Gordon in 1995.