Editor’s Note: This is the first of a three-part series on NASCAR Hall of Famer Bobby Labonte. “I’d say 1990 was the first time that I said, ‘Hey, I’m actually getting paid to drive my own car,’” Labonte said. I wasn’t gonna drive for anybody else probably,” Labonte said. “The opportunity was more because I kind of knew how to work on race cars, I knew how to build cars, I knew how to be a mechanic, I knew how to be a fabricator. Sponsors were coming and going and not sure what the next thing was going to be, then it gets down to the end of the year then you get kind of nervous,” Labonte said. “They had Hendrick motors, they had sponsors,” Labonte said.

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