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EVENTS
CNNSI.com GROUP
COMMERCE
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Honoring thy brother Sharing difficult for racing's sibling rivals
Updated: Thursday February 08, 2001 11:41 PM
By John Donovan, CNNSI.com DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- There was a time, not so long ago, when racing brothers Rusty, Kenny and Mike Wallace could talk about pretty much anything. Racing, for instance, little tricks of the how to get around a certain track. Or setting up a racecar. Or working on a team. Whatever. It's not so easy now. On the NASCAR circuit, secrets are hard things to keep. So a veteran like Rusty Wallace, entering his 22nd Winston Cup season, has to watch what he's saying, even to his younger brothers. "I don't have a problem helping my brothers. But the problem I do have is when I help my brothers, my brothers have to tell the crew chiefs and team members to put it in the car," Rusty, 44, said Thursday at Media Day at Daytona International Speedway. "And these team members and crew guys have no problem at all quitting and rolling their toolbox down the street and saying 'Hey, guess what. This is the setup Rusty just used to win Bristol.'" It is that kind of cutthroat business move that has made it increasingly difficult for NASCAR siblings. Racing always has been a family thing in NASCAR. It is a vocation handed down from father to son -- and, often, to many sons. This season, at least four sets of brothers will take to the track for NASCAR races, including the Wallaces, brothers Geoff, Brett and Todd Bodine, the Burton brothers (Jeff and Ward) and the Labontes (Bobby and Terry). All the brothers make a point of keeping in touch with each other -- most of them talk almost daily. And while they all say it's great having a brother in the business, it doesn't necessarily make it easy.
"It's fun, but it's difficult," Jeff Burton, 33, said of racing with his older brother, Ward, 39. Jeff likens having his brother in the same business to two brothers in the construction business, both going after the same project. "Every time someone doesn't get the job, it hurts the other one's feelings. It's difficult to balance." Still, the family ties have served the drivers well. The younger Bodines took their lead from their older brother, 18-time Winston Cup winner Geoff Bodine. Middle brother Brett has won nearly $10 million in his 13 seasons in Winston Cup. And now, nearly 37-year-old baby brother Todd, a Busch Series veteran, hopes to use what he has seen and heard from his brothers to make a splash on the Winston Cup scene this season. "I always try to take the best of both of them: Geoff very aggressive, sometimes too aggressive, Brett very calculating, trying to put himself in the right position for the end of the race," Todd said. "And I try to split the difference. I call it 'racing ... smart.'" When Bobby Labonte, 36, won the Winston Cup championship last season, it was the first time in NASCAR history a pair of brothers had won Winston Cup titles. Older brother Terry, 44, won in 1984 and in '96. The Labonte family still talks regularly about racing and family, often about Terry's son Justin, a Busch Series driver who just turned 20 years old. The Labontes are not ones to worry about giving away critical race strategies. "What secrets are there to be taken and given anymore? As far as race strategy or race setups go, he could give me everything he's got and I could give him everything I got and it probably is not going to matter. Not the same teams, not the same racecar," Bobby said. "Our driving styles are different enough that it's not going to matter anyway. Says Terry Labonte: "Everybody pretty much has access to the same stuff." Still, there is an air of caution among other sets of racing brothers. The Bodines have spent their whole careers learning from each other. Geoff, 51, is 10 years older than Brett, and Brett is five years older than Todd. That's a lot of years of racing, and a lot of invaluable experience going back and forth. But even for the Bodines, there is a limit about what they can share. "Fortunately, we've done this long enough, we know when we're stepping out of bounds with questions. We know how to respect the team that we're driving for and the team that they're driving for and their territory," Brett said. "Certainly, we try to help. But there comes a point where you have to stop." Stop helping, maybe. But never stop talking. Not these brothers. Through Geoff Bodine's harrowing accident in the truck series at Daytona last season, through the Labonte wins, through 30-plus races a season for decades, through the winner's circle and too many DNFs, these NASCAR brothers always manage to keep the lines of communication open. Even if not completely open. "Now that they're in Winston Cup, both of them, they've both got tons of questions. Seems like I'm the sounding board," Rusty Wallace said of his brothers. "I never lie to them. There are things I just don't tell them."
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