Booby Labonte, who is a NASCAR champ, won the 2000 Winston Cup Series. He revealed his fight against health issues. Check it out here.
Bobby Labonte : Age | Nascar | Health issues | Wife
Robert Allen Labonte is an American semi-retired professional stock car racing driver and current analyst for NASCAR on Fox.
| Achievements | 2000 Winston Cup Series Champion 1991 Busch Series Champion 2001 IROC Champion 1995 Coca-Cola 600 Winner 2000 Brickyard 400 Winner 2000 Southern 500 Winner Oldest winner of a Superstar Racing Experience race (58 years, 2 months, and 1 day old at Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway in 2022) |
|---|---|
| Awards | NASCAR Hall of Fame (2020) |
He also currently competes full-time in the Superstar Racing Experience, driving the No. 18 car. Labonte is the 2000 NASCAR Cup Series champion.
He and his older brother, Terry Labonte, are one of only two pairs of brothers to have both won the Cup championships (along with Kurt Busch and Kyle Busch).
He is also the uncle of former Xfinity Series race winner Justin Labonte.
Labonte is the first driver to have won both the Winston Cup championship (2000) and the Busch Series championship (1991) in both series current touring form.
Bobby labonte age
Labonte was born on May 8, 1964, in Corpus Christi, Texas. He began racing in 1969 in quarter midgets in his home state of Texas, winning his first feature race one year later.
| Full Name | Bobby Labonte |
| Age | 58 years old as of 2022. |
| Nationality | American |
| Spouse | Kristin Labonte |
| Net Worth | $45 million |
From then until 1977, he drove in quarter-midgets throughout the United States, winning many races.
In 1978, he advanced to the go-kart ranks but moved to North Carolina with his family following older brother Terry’s advancement to the Winston Cup Series.
In 1980, Bobby made his NASCAR International Sedan Series debut in Atlanta, finishing third. Bobby made his Busch Series debut in 1982 at Martinsville Speedway, finishing 30th.
Following his graduation from Trinity High School, he worked as a fabricator on Terry’s cars at Hagan Racing. Labonte returned to the Busch Series in 1985, running two races in a car he owned himself at Martinsville.
In his first race, he finished 30th, bringing home only $220. In his next race, though, he finished in 17th, his best finish so far.
Bobby labonte Nascar
Bobby Labonte is the only driver with championships in NASCAR’s top two series, along with a spot in its Hall of Fame in Charlotte, North Carolina.
The Texas native and North Carolina resident won the 1991 Xfinity title with his family-owned team.
Nine years later, driving for Joe Gibbs Racing, he won the 2000 Cup title. Not surprisingly, he was inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame with the Class of 2020.
Labonte will reside in his special place until at least five drivers join him in the foreseeable future.
Brad Keselowski, Kyle Busch, Kevin Harvick, Martin Truex Jr., and Chase Elliott already have the big hardware from NASCAR’s top two series.
And hardly anyone doubts that all five will make the Hall of Fame within a few years of eligibility.
Health issues
Bobby Labonte drove the No. 18 Interstate Batteries Pontiac to the top of NASCAR in 2000, winning the Winston Cup Series for Joe Gibbs Racing.
While he was able to battle dozens of other drivers for 21 wins during his NASCAR Cup career and 10 more in his NASCAR Xfinity Series career, Labonte revealed in a segment on FOX that he’s been battling startling health concerns.
He said that in 2019 he started to feel unwell and went to a doctor to get checked out. He said the doctor told him about a spot on his kidney and that it was something to keep an eye on.
And he said two years later the mass on his kidney had “tripled in size” and doctors recommended surgery to remove it.
Labonte, who is now a NASCAR analyst for FOX Sports, said he received a call from the doctor who removed the mass, Mohamad Allaf, M.D., the director for the department of urology at Johns Hopkins in Maryland, and was told that everything went well with the surgery but that the mass was cancerous and the cancer “very aggressive.”
Wife
Kristen and Bobby Labonte’s mutual passion for cycling ended up leading to their eventual marriage.
Bobby, who has two children with his first wife Donna, met Kristen through their personal trainer.
He arranged for the two to have a first date at the High Point Cycling Classic in 2014, and they hit it off pretty quickly and got hitched soon after that.
If you ask Kristin, it’s no coincidence that Bobby has become passionate about cycling later in life, because according to her, there are actually some similarities between the two-wheeled activity and Bobby’s former four-wheeled sport.
“One of these sports is louder and faster, but there are definitely some striking similarities between NASCAR and cycling,” Kristin Labonte told Velo News. “Having been involved in both, I think there are things the two sports can learn from each other.”
Kristin, who went on to discuss how NASCAR and cycling are also alike from a sponsorship perspective, also sees the economic independence of NASCAR teams and cycling teams as a striking similarity between the two sports.