Low-key Labonte excited by LVMS

By Ron Kantowski

Tuesday, March 11, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.

There's a rumor going around that when doctors tried to inject Terry Labonte's injured left wrist with painkillers during his Winston Cup title run last season, they found ice water where his bloodstream was supposed to be.

So when the normally reserved NASCAR champion uses words like "different" and "exciting" in conjunction with racing in Sunday's Las Vegas 300 NASCAR Busch Grand National inaugural at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, anticipate something special.

"This is the first time a lot of fans will get to witness firsthand one of the most competitive series there is," Labonte said via telephone Monday, previewing the Busch series' first venture west of the Mississippi River.

"You're going to have Winston Cup drivers with the Busch drivers for some great racing on a superspeedway most of us have never been to. It's going to be exciting and different, because nobody's ever been there."

The two-time Winston Cup champion, whose career renaissance shifted into overdrive upon hooking up with Rick Hendrick's powerhouse team prior to the 1994 season, will drive the Alka-Seltzer/Bayer Chevrolet (owned by his wife Kim) in Sunday's race. He is one of nine Winston Cup regulars entered.

Four of the top 10 runners in last Sunday's Winston Cup Primestar 500 -- Dale Jarrett, Michael Waltrip, Labonte and his brother, Bobby -- will test the 1.5-mile Las Vegas oval. And three of the four are running in the top 5 in Winston Cup points. Jarrett leads, followed by Terry Labonte in second and Bobby in fifth.

More than $1 million in prize money, including the second-largest race purse in Busch history ($885,275), will be at stake Sunday. And there's talk LVMS is at the top or near the top of the list (which is getting longer every day) of tracks clamoring for a Winston Cup race.

But Labonte said those aren't the reasons he'll be here on a rare Winston Cup off weekend.

"Whenever we do a Busch deal, it's for 16 or 18 races or whatever," he said of his sponsorship commitments. "(Las Vegas) is a good place for our sponsors. We've never been to the West Coast with the Busch team, so they (sponsors) will be able to get involved with a whole different group of people and their companies."

Labonte, who finished 10th after starting last Saturday's Busch race at Atlanta, the Stihl Power Tools 300, from a distant 36th, said he has not seen so much as a photograph of the 6-month-old Las Vegas oval.

He said the setups used by the NASCAR Craftsman Truck drivers, who raced here last November, really don't translate to the faster and more aerodynamic Busch cars. So virtually the entire field will be starting from scratch Thursday, when the cars roll off their trailers and onto the 16-degree banks for practice.

"The more experienced guys or somebody who has an idea of what kind of changes to make ... might be able to adapt quicker," said Labonte, who indicated he would use his Michigan International Speedway settings as a baseline setup. "But that doesn't necessarily mean anything.

"You really can't say this guy is going to be favored or that guy is going to be favored because nobody's ever been there."

Labonte, who has posted 10 Busch wins since he began running the series in earnest in 1993, will experience another first on Wednesday, when he steps out of his Monte Carlo and climbs into a Thunderbird -- the kind belonging to the U.S. Air Force.

The unassuming Winston Cup champion no doubt will have some of that ice water in his veins thawed when he takes to the skies with the demonstration squadron Thunderbirds at Nellis Air Force Base.

"I don't know. I've never done that before," Labonte said in typical "Iceman" fashion, when asked what he was expecting to experience during Wednesday's flight.

But then his voice perked up, which seldom happens -- not even when Dale Earnhardt is closing on his rear spoiler.

"It should be pretty exciting," Labonte said about getting airborne with the Thunderbirds. "It's something I've always wanted to do."