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“Bobby Ginn was sitting on my pit box. He taps me on the shoulder during the race and he goes, ‘See that up there?’ I didn’t know what he was talking about, so I looked up and there was a blimp flying overhead and it said ‘Ginn Resorts’ on the side of it. He says, ‘How many other car owners you know got their own blimp?’ And I thought to myself, ‘Holy crap. Either this guy’s got a boatload of money or we’re gonna be broke in six months.’ Sure enough, we were broke in six months.”
Slugger Labbe served as crew chief for Sterling Marlin at Ginn Motorsports, but was part of a massive employee purge midway through the 2007 season.
According to Slugger, however, Ginn treated him fairly … and actually ASKED to be sued in the process of buying out the rest of Slugger’s contract.
Paul Menard won the 2011 edition of the Brickyard 400 with Slugger calling the shots in the pits as his crew chief.
Although they were trying to conserve fuel, Slugger told Paul to let it all hang out with just a couple of laps remaining in the race because Jeff Gordon was closing ground in a hurry. Paul ended up beating Jeff to the checkered flag by a little more than 7/10ths of a second.
Slugger met a new set of challenges and pressures when he became crew chief on Austin Dillon’s number 3 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet.
The role of crew chief had changed, and after having to go through tech seven times at Bristol, Slugger was suspended for a race by team owner Richard Childress.
Shortly thereafter, Slugger’s tenure with the team was over. The last race he worked with RCR and Dillon was at Kansas in 2017. It was his 500th … and final … race as a Cup crew chief.
Slugger spent time as a youngster resenting the sport because it had taken his father away from home so often. As his time in the sport was coming to a close, Slugger had regrets over the very same thing happening with his own children.
He now works with Toyota Racing Development on its NHRA and NASCAR programs.
