LaBobby rides again: In praise of Bobby Labonte in 2010

In a small but important victory for racing fans, the man we here at The Marbles have affectionately called "LaBobby" recently secured a ride for the 2010 season. Yay! Many of us thought when Hall of Fame Racing started putting Erik Darnell in the seat in the #96, that HOF was crazy (some of us still think so), and some of us worried, "What will Bobby do?"

LaBonte has a way of landing on his feet, however. Without skipping a beat, he calmly piled into the TRG #71 and began turning out solid performances for that team. TRG seems to know which side their bread is buttered on, because they've signed LaBonte to a contract for the full 2010 season. TaxSlayer.com has signed up to sponsor about half the races, and the rest are still up for grabs, in case any of you guys has a few extra bucks to blow.

Bobby started his racing career at the tender age of five, following in big brother Terry's footsteps, and won his first race when he was seven. He grew up to earn his stripes in the garage as well, as a mechanic and fabricator on the car that brother Terry drove to a Cup championship for Hagen Enterprises in 1982. He followed that up by building his own car for what we now call the Nationwide Series. Who does that these days?

But Bobby didn't stop there. In 1995 he scored a seat at JGR, and in 2000 he drove the #18 Interstate Batteries car to the Cup Championship. In his 11 years with JGR he piled up 21 wins, and seven top-ten finishes in the points standings.

Since he left JGR, he's driven for Petty Enterprises, and then for HOF, both of which are not exactly the most well-heeled teams in the stable. His newest team, TRG (The Racer's Group) is relatively new to Sprint Cup, but not new to racing. The company was founded by a dude named Kevin Buckler with racing in his blood and a long and prosperous history. [Editor's aside: we did a podcast with Buckler here, and podcasts with Labonte here and here.] With this kind of backing, and Slugger Labbe on his box, I'm thinking we could see ol' Bobby in Victory Lane again before very much longer!