NASCAR Hall of Famer Terry Labonte Living a GRRREAT! Life Outside the Race Car

NASCAR Hall of Famer Terry Labonte—the racer who made Tony the Tiger and Kellogg's breakfast cereals staples of a Cup Series weekend—is still GRRREAT!

Terry, 65, raced full time in the Cup series from 1979 until 2004. Along the way he scored 22 wins (younger bother Bobby has 21), and two Cup series titles (Bobby has one).

Unlike his younger brother, who still races when he can and showed up in Tony Stewart's Superstar Racing Experience, Terry seems content to stay out of a race car in retirement.

Make that ‘semi-retirement’.

Terry is far from spending his days on the couch, as he splits his time between his native Texas and North Carolina where he co-owns a Chevrolet dealership with his former team owner Rick Hendrick in Greensboro. He also has a marketing company that was borne out of a sponsorship deal back in the 1990s when Kellogg’s used his No. 5 Chevy to promote such things as it’s Frosted Flakes breakfast cereal and just about anything “Tony the Tiger.”

His marketing company keeps him in touch with NASCAR, but is perhaps best known as the agency that manages appearances for Tony the Tiger. Or that is to say the agency that gets the costume shipped to where it’s needed and hires the talent to wear it.

Terry did return to the track last weekend, specifically, Darlington Raceway where he was an honorary race official. Darlington is special to Terry, who was inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame in 2016, four years before Bobby.

Darlington is where Terry made his NASCAR debut at the age of 21 in 1978, finishing fourth in one of NASCAR’s toughest races. That top-five finish got the attention of many in the industry.

Terry said he remembers looking at the scoreboard on that day in '78, and for where he was in the standings that day, either.

“I wasn't smart enough to look at the scoreboard to see what my car number up there,” he said chuckling. “But I kept looking up there to see how many laps were left, because I thought ‘this is the longest race I've ever run in my life’.

Prior to that his longest race had been 200 laps on a half-mile oval.

“I came down here and I'm like, my God, this race lasted forever. And we finished fourth. I'm like, I never even thought to look at the car number. I just looked at the laps, how many more laps is this thing, you know? But it went on forever. It seemed like.”

That top-five finish got the attention of many in the industry.

“I thought, ‘man, I think I'm gonna like this,” he said. “It’s really funny when we came down here to run at Darlington, I was driving for Billy Hagan and Billy called me. He said, ‘Hey, we're gonna go to Darlington and run the Southern 500’. And I said, ‘Billy, I'd really, you know, think maybe I'd be better off to start at like Martinsville or Wilkesboro or, you know, half mile track or something, that I'm kind of used to running’. He said, ‘oh, we're gonna go there too, but we're gonna go to Darlington first. I said, okay.”

Darlington is the site where he won his first Cup race four years later, beating none other than David Pearson in 1980.

“I remember we went down into turn 1 and somebody had dumped some oil or water on the track and two of the three of the cars got in it and brushed the wall and two or three made it through there and didn't, and I was one that didn't hit anything.

“David Pearson had bounced off the wall down there. And I don't think he ever saw me coming; so I caught him coming through three and four and beat him by half a fender to the white flag, which was also the caution, back then you raced to the back to the caution. So, at that point it was kind of over so well, it was over. So anyway, so that was that one. That was a pretty exciting Southern 500.”

Ironically, Darlington was where Terry scored his last Cup win, that coming in the Southern 500 in 2003.

“I didn't realize that was going to be my last win,” he said adding with a chuckle, “I would’ve just retired that afternoon."

As it turned out, Labonte raced 84 more times without a win before making his last Cup start at Talladega in 2014.

“But to go between 23 years between wins, it's like, well, how do you do that? You know? But we did, we were able to accomplish that," he said. "I was glad that we were able to get back in victory lane. It had been a few years since we had won a race. It was just one of those days that the guys on our Hendrick team just had a fantastic pit stop. And we had a great car all day and ran it, ran well all day long and got out front at the end and were able to hold everybody of. it was a good day.”

In 1998 Labonte was named as one of NASCAR’s 50 Greatest Drivers. It’s a list that includes the likes of Pearson, Dale Earnhardt Sr. and Richard Petty.

In perhaps a testament to how in-touch he remains with the sport today, Terry didn’t hesitate to name those drivers he would include on a “50 Greatest” list today.

“I think the first one that comes to mind is Kyle Larson,” he said. “I mean, he's just a fantastic talent; you ever watched him run a Sprint car or a dirt late model or a Cup car or anything? I mean, he is just extremely talented and very good.

“Chase Elliott’s the other one. I think that he’s just really, really good.”

As for others?

“I think it really says something when you have had so many different winners this year. That's amazing that they've had that many different winners: Tyler Reddick, I mean, he's very talented, driving for Childress. There's a lot of guys that you can look at and say, ‘man, these guys are really good’. I could go on and on probably. There's a lot of 'em that are good for sure.”

Once the race ended Sunday, Terry Labonte faded again from view. Don’t worry about him though; he’s living his best life and has the memories of a Hall of Fame career in NASCAR that will last forever.

“I wouldn't trade a thing,” he said. “I enjoyed the time I had in racing, and I was really fortunate to race a lot longer than a lot of people have had the opportunity to do and was able to do a lot of things because of racing. I certainly don't have any regrets and enjoyed 99% of it.”