By The Commish

It started at the 1995 Hendrick Motorsports Christmas party. Jeff Gordon’s team was celebrating its first Winston Cup Championship, and teammate Terry Labonte's team was watching them hungrily. "Those guys were like, 'Hey, congratulations,'" Gordon said. "They were saying, 'You guys won it last year. We want to go out and win it next year.'" That set the tone for the 1996 season— one where two teams from Hendrick Motorsports set the standard for the circuit, with only one other driver (Dale Jarrett) in the running with three races left in the championship.

This year, as Gordon and Jimmie Johnson fight for the Nextel Cup, much is being made of the supposed rivalry between the two teams. But the Hendrick recipe for teammates fighting for a championship was forged between the #24 and the #5 car a decade ago. Ray Evernham, Gordon’s crew chief, and Gary DeHart, Labonte’s crew chief, were polar opposites: Evernham, the intense, new-school, engineering geek, vs. DeHart, the laid-back, old-school, seat-of-the-pants racer. Gordon, the charismatic, mediagenic young gun couldn’t have been more different than the reserved, unassuming Labonte. But their mutual success confirmed Hendrick's still-controversial decision to run a multi-car team. His third driver, Ken Schrader, was just 17 points out of a top-10 spot going into the season-ending race at Atlanta.

"People told me how stupid I was, but I stuck to it," Hendrick said. "I've had drivers and crew chiefs who didn't believe in it. Gordon does. Labonte does." The crew chiefs, however, were a little less forthcoming. "If we go to a race track and we're in trouble and we're not running very good, we can go over there and they'll tell us everything they've got, and vice versa," said Labonte. "We don't intrude on them and they don't intrude on us. We do our own deal and they do their own deal. Some general information is shared back and forth. It's kind of hard to explain." Hendrick added, "I don't mean there's no competition. There's a heck of a lot of competition. Everybody wants to win. I think everybody has bought into the fact that in order for us to be strong every single year, to be a contender, we've got to keep this momentum of working together."

Still, the NAPA 500 at Atlanta in 1996 would test the Hendrick philosophy to the maximum. Gordon at times in 1995 had looked like he would be able to defend his championship. Over the course of the season, he won ten races, but was never able to pull away from the field. The sixth DNF of the season at Charlotte in October left Gordon with only a one-point lead over Labonte, and those disastrous finishes would end up taking their toll on the championship. Gordon finished 31st or worse six times -- at Daytona and Rockingham to start the season, at Talladega in April, at New Hampshire in the summer and at Indianapolis and Charlotte down the stretch. Labonte scored only his second win of the year at Charlotte, but he had also accumulated seven seconds, five thirds and only one finish in the 30s. That steady performance enabled him to offset Gordon’s inconsistent brilliance.

In the weeks leading up to the championship, both drivers reiterated that they were still teammates, even as they were competing fiercely for the Cup. Labonte reminded reporters that both drivers had the same goal: "The bottom line is we all want to win championships for Hendrick Motorsports," he said. "It's a great feeling because we have a lot of people behind the scenes that make all three of the cars run." Hendrick himself was feeling the strain, however. "When you have three competitive teams, chances are they're going to run together, they're going to challenge each other," said Hendrick. "That's what we work for. If you can't handle that kind of pressure, you shouldn't have 'em. But it's really tough. It's sure hard on your nerves." Still, he noted, "It's a bittersweet deal, but it's a good problem to have."

In the week before the Atlanta race, Hendrick did everything in his power to make sure that teamwork led to a championship for the organization. He brought all the members of both teams together for a little reminder of where everyone's been. "Class act on Rick Hendrick's part," Gordon said. "A lot of times questions are asked to try to make the two teams conflict instead of working together the way we had to get to this level. It really showed how much respect we've got for each other." The two teams' drivers, crew chiefs and crew members met for about two hours to make sure that the teams understood his position. At the end of the meeting, Hendrick made the teams a promise: no matter which team won, he would congratulate the team that finished second before he went to Victory Lane for the party.

Still, Gordon came into the final race at Atlanta knowing that he had to excel and hope that the Kellogg’s team faltered. Gordon needed to win and lead the most laps and hope Labonte finished ninth or worse. The car was ill-handling at the beginning of the race, and by the fifth lap, Gordon's handling problems had deteriorated into a bad vibration. He lost two laps in changing tires, but by racing hard on restarts, he regained both laps and eventually passed Labonte by lap 108. Running hard, Gordon led 59 of the 328 laps, but the tires went away on his car after a gas-only stop on Lap 275, and he finished third.

Labonte had his own challenges at Atlanta. Not only were Gordon and Jarrett howling down his neck in the points, but he was still coping with the effects of an injury suffered at Phoenix. Labonte had suffered a broken left hand when his car's accelerator hung and he crashed in practice at Phoenix. Initially, he was more concerned about breaking his favorite race car. The broken hand was secondary, but then came the pain-killing injections Saturday and Sunday morning. "I had to get these shots in my hand, and it was very painful," said Labonte, the Winston Cup points leader, "so Rick Hendrick gets some buddy to go get a syringe from a vet that they give shots to horses with. It's about a foot long, right? So he comes in the truck with it, he has it filled up with something, and he says, 'Here, we're all set for the middle of the race if your hand starts hurting.' I told 'em, 'Now I tell you what, you guys think this is a big joke. It isn't as funny as y'all think it is."

Even with two weeks of intense physical therapy, Labonte was still suffering. "You just turn the wheel so much here," he told reporters. "And it's so tender right there where the bone is broken, it doesn't take much to make it hurt." Driving carefully, the Iceman managed to lead the race twice on the way to a fifth-place finish and his second Winston Cup championship.

Labonte’s fifth place finish at Atlanta gave him the Winston Cup championship by a mere 37 points. For one of the few times in his career, the Iceman showed emotion in Victory Lane, pumping his fist and hugging his brother Bobby, who had won the race and taken a victory lap with his older brother. "I couldn't believe it," Labonte said. "I was totally surprised when it happened. I don't do things like that. But it was special. I was beginning to think it might not happen."

Rick Hendrick eventually came to Victory Lane, having gone first to Ken Schrader’s pit to thank him for his service and then to Gordon’s pit to congratulate the Rainbow Warriors on a hard-fought championship. Gordon, too, would eventually make his way to Labonte’s side to congratulate him as well. Then, when Gordon faced the media, he mixed his praise for his teammate with his determination to succeed in 1997. "I've got to take my hat off to Terry Labonte," Gordon said. "That's great, finishing 1-2 in the points. Terry and those guys are a class act. They've been deserving of a championship for a long time. We're happy to see 'em get it. We knew if they didn't have a problem, we wouldn't have a chance. We knew we were going to have to be aggressive all day long. We certainly wanted to make them work for it, and they did. That's just the way the ball rolls. That's why every race is so important. Things are the way they are and I think God intended them to be."

“Fighting back like that is what it's all about," Gordon added, "but even if I had won the race and led every lap, I still couldn't have won it (the championship). We did something I'm real proud of today," Gordon continued. "It says a lot about this team, it does a lot for our team going into next season. It was a great day for us. We've run awful here in the past. It was a great comeback. I had a great car, this is a great team. I'm looking forward to the future." Hendrick noticed, too, that Gordon was already studying the lessons that Labonte’s success had taught. "Jeff has made a lot of comments about how he's watched Terry and how Terry sizes up the race and races to win."

It wasn't the racing alone that make the Hendrick teams draw together. Less than a week after Labonte’s triumph, Rick Hendrick was diagnosed with leukemia, and the unity forged among the teams from rallying behind their stricken leader became a permanent hallmark of the organization. Hopefully, three weeks from now, Gordon won’t have to say "Wait till next year" or face any further trauma. The lessons learned from battling the Iceman may just be the ingredient that tips the 2007 championship in Gordon's favor.

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