Labonte

OK, race fans. Multiple choice:

After winning last weekend's Virginia 500 at Martinsville Speedway, Bobby Labonte:

A. tore around the track doing doughnuts the entire way.

B. came to a screeching halt in the infield, climbed out of his seat and stood on top of his car pumping his fist.

C. jumped out of his car in victory lane and slung bubbly all over his posse, screaming and hollering and raising a raucous.

D. slipped out of his No. 18 Pontiac, hugged his crew chief, kissed his wife and congratulated his crew.

The answer, of course, is D. After winning at the half-mile short track, surviving the beating and the banging, he simply got out of his car and celebrated with class.

Labonte isn't the wild child that some Winston Cup drivers are. He doesn't have a reputation for dirty racing or throwing temper tantrums.

Some say he lacks personality. Other say he's too quiet for the roar of racing. But, when he sat in the towers overlooking Martinsville after his victory and was asked if he thought he needed to have a more aggressive persona, the Texas-native said plenty.

"If you change your nature," he said, "you're changing a lot."

Labonte has too much pride in who he is to try to be someone else. And his businesslike demeanor, not too soft but not too hard, has served him well -- during a title defense that fell way short of expectations in 2001 and also this season as he hopes to return to championship form.

After winning the 2000 Winston Cup crown, Labonte got off to a terrible start in 2001. He started the season with a wreck in the Daytona 500, and through seven races posted just one top-10 finish. He was as low as 26th in the points standings — and throughout he had that tag, almost mocking him, as defending Winston Cup champion.

"You can get really down in this deal and it really affects you a lot," Labonte said. "I can't say that it hasn't because it has. We've just plain out sucked a lot the last year and a half or so."

While Labonte is pretty accurate in describing most of last year, he did turn things around toward the end. So much so that he wound up finishing in the top 10 in the standings. It was too late to make the memory of last season very pleasant, but it was just in time to gain momentum for entering this season.

"It was really important for the entire team that we ended the way we did," said Jimmy Makar, Labonte's crew chief. "Last year was so disappointing, it would've been hard to put it behind us and come into this year like that. But nobody gave up."

Labonte isn't one to get too caught up in titles. But you can tell it bothered him a little to put forth such a meager title defense. This year, though, with the victory at Martinsville he is mounting a stout bid for this year's crown.

And he's doing it on his terms. No beating of the chest. No patting himself on the back.

"I don't think I take criticism for the way I act," Labonte said. "I don't know. I don't see any point in being something I'm not. I love racing. I am very passionate about the sport. I just show it in my own ways."

Rupen Fofaria is a beat writer for the Raleigh News & Observer.