1,000 Greatest Drivers: Bobby Labonte

Probably the luckiest NASCAR driver of the modern era, but there was still greatness there.

This marks the second of three flashbacks to the 1999 NASCAR season 25 years ago in quick succession. Although I didn’t actually mention it in my post, I certainly chose to write about Ernie Irvan two days ago because it was the 30th anniversary of his near-fatal crash and the 25th anniversary of his career-ending crash. Now today, I’m writing about Bobby Labonte because it is the 25th anniversary of what was probably his most exciting win at Michigan. Six days from now, I will be writing about his brother and I bet you can guess why. Labonte was certainly one of my favorite drivers in my youth, but my feelings about him are somewhat weird as I definitely think his 2000 season is overrated by the general public as he was not particularly dominant and mainly won that championship in a romp because he had arguably the luckiest season of all time, I feel like his earlier years at Joe Gibbs Racing generally don’t get enough praise. He does not get enough credit for almost singlehandedly bringing Pontiac back from the dead, but I won’t spoil all of it here.