Bobby Labonte Dishes on Harris Lue

HOW DID YOU GET INTRODUCED TO HARRIS AND HIS DESIGNS?

He designed the stuff for the Hall of Fame. So when the induction was happening and all of that stuff, my wife Kristin wanted to work on some stuff, so we reached out to Harris and they made a phone call. They speak very similar languages – my wife being very creative. They put all of that together and communicated to make that merchandise better.

When we got the Cook Out deal with the modified, we knew the colors, but “how do we want to do it? Let’s call Harris and have him help design the car.” He did the T-shirts for two years. All of what we do is based around getting Harris to do it for us, because it’s an easy call. “Can you do a helmet? Can you do a hauler?” It’s easy for us to work with him because we’ve already got this relationship, and he’s easy to work with.

He’s creative, and that’s where my wife is very creative. Those two talk the same language, it’s crazy. It’s like, “How simple can this be?” Personally, I don’t have to worry about some of it, I just let them handle it.

HOW VALUABLE IS IT TO HAVE SOMEONE LIKE HARRIS TO TAKE THE PRESSURE OFF OF YOU CREATIVELY?

It takes a lot of pressure off of us, just the fact that when it comes to designing something and having something created, it’s a phone call away. That ball is in motion between he and my wife – I just trust that it’s going to be good and they’re doing it. For me, it’s easy.

It’s great because we have a guy like Harris, and he gets what we’re doing. He understands it, and we’re creating some more stuff as we speak that we’re excited about that nobody knows about. It’s good to have him on our side and we like each other. We work well together, and that makes it a lot easier.

WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE DESIGN THAT HE’S CREATED FOR YOU?

The first Cook Out car to me was cool. It was cool because it was a modified, and it was something I had never really done before. I have to go with that one for making it easy, and we didn’t have to design 25 cars to choose from.