Bombers won’t blow a gasket

Team OK with LaBatte racing on dirt tracks

By: Paul Wiecek Posted: 1:00 AM CDT Friday, Sep. 2, 2011

He's a veteran starter with arguably the second most important job on the Winnipeg Blue Bombers -- keeping quarterback Buck Pierce safe and healthy so that Pierce can do the first most important job on the team.

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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 02/09/2011 (5482 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

He’s a veteran starter with arguably the second most important job on the Winnipeg Blue Bombers — keeping quarterback Buck Pierce safe and healthy so that Pierce can do the first most important job on the team.

It is important — very important — in other words that offensive lineman Brendon LaBatte stay healthy, particularly with a crucial home-and-home series coming up with the Saskatchewan Roughriders.

And yet there was LaBatte at the Morden Corn and Apple Festival last weekend, driving a souped-up pickup truck 80 m.p.h. around a 3/8-mile dirt racetrack.

RUTH BONNEVILLE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS
offensive lineman Brendon LaBatte isn't the fastest guy on the field, but he speeds it up considerably on the track. — RUTH BONNEVILLE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS offensive lineman Brendon LaBatte isn't the fastest guy on the field, but he speeds it up considerably on the track.

LaBatte won a race Saturday night and picked up a $500 first-place cheque for his exploits — which he promptly then blew later in a second race when his truck blew a head gasket.

So it all begged the question of Bombers management this week — Is it a good idea to have your starting offensive guard speeding around small-town dirt tracks in the middle of a football season and with a critical game coming up in Regina this Sunday against the Riders?

“I don’t know that he is racing during the season,” Bombers general manager Joe Mack said Thursday.

Informed that LaBatte was, in fact, doing precisely that, Mack said he had no big problem with it in any event.

“I guess we could talk to him about it,” he said. “I don’t find it to be that big of an issue. You could get into a car wreck on Portage and Main, for that matter.

“I just think Brendon’s a bright guy and he wouldn’t put himself in a dangerous situation from a career standpoint.”

Precisely, said LaBatte.

“It is somewhat dangerous, but it’s also relatively safe. The cars are built so well, they have such heavy-duty roll cages and so much protective gear and everything like that, the risk is pretty minimal in my mind.”

LaBatte, who comes from a family of race car drivers, has been racing since he was 15 and said a serious injury in a race car wreck would be his first. “I’ve never broken a bone or really had anything serious happen to me,” he said.

Some pro athletes have restrictions on what off-field activities they can participate in — there’s often exclusions, for instance, forbidding any motorcycle riding. But LaBatte says he has no such restrictions.

“There’s nothing in my contract stopping me from doing anything I want in my free time,” he says. “Racing is something I’ve been doing for so long and I have a real passion for it and love to do it any opportunity I get.”

LaBatte said it was the first time he’d raced the truck.

“It was beginner’s luck. First night out and I ended up winning,” said LaBatte, who’s been doing much the same on a football field this year with a club that is 7-1 heading into Regina.

“When it happened, I was thinking, ‘Yep, the horseshoe is still up there.’ “

paul.wiecek@freepress.mb.ca