Texas native Terry Labonte said his victory Sunday in the Primestar 500 at Texas Motor Speedway in Ft. Worth was the most meaningful of his career.
“This is the biggest race I’ve ever won,” said Labonte, a two-time Winston Cup season champion who has 21 career victories. “If you’re not from Texas, you can’t know how it feels.”
The Corpus Christi native was saluted by a crowd of more than 200,000 as he drove to the finish line under the eighth caution flag of the day, brought out when Jimmy Spencer crashed four laps from the end. Dale Jarrett finished second.
Labonte was fast all day, leading five times for 124 laps, including the final 12 of the 334-lap race. He averaged 144.276 m.p.h.
Two-time defending series champion Jeff Gordon blew a tire and hit a wall on the 69th lap, forcing him to drop out. He finished last for the second time in his career.
– Scott Goodyear, making his 21st Indy Racing League start, earned his first IRL victory when he bolted away from the field in the last two restarts of the MCI WorldCom 200 in Phoenix. Jeff Ward was second, about 350 yards behind.
– Driver Casey Diemert, 23, of Roseburg, Ore., was killed Saturday on opening day of Irwindale (Calif.) Speedway when his car hit a wall at 100 m.p.h. and flipped during practice.