MOORESVILLE, N.C. (Aug. 15, 2018) – Terry Labonte is a two-time NASCAR Cup Series champion, winner of 22 races in NASCAR’s top series, a 2016 inductee into the NASCAR Hall of Fame and one of the top drivers in what is considered one of the most exciting eras of the sport.

He also had a couple of run-ins with Dale Earnhardt Sr., the most famous of which occurred on Aug. 28, 1999 at Bristol Motor Speedway. You know the one. It’s the “Rattle His Cage” race, in which Dale Sr. got into the back of Labonte’s car on the final lap off Turn 2, spinning him out of the race lead and earning the victory.

That incident was a watershed moment during that era, and nearly 19 years later, it’s still talked about, rehashed and pondered over. That’s exactly what Labonte, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and co-hosts Mike Davis and Matthew Dillner did on this week’s edition of the Dale Jr. Download.

In Victory Lane, the elder Earnhardt famously said that he didn’t mean to wreck Labonte on the final, merely “rattle his cage.” Labonte was asked, straight up, whether he believed what Dale Sr. said that night.

“I told somebody that I did believe him and they looked at me like, ‘you’re the only one who believes that!’” Labonte quipped to general laughter.

Known as the “Iceman,” Labonte was not known for emotional outbursts during his 37-year career, but the story he told on Dirty Mo Radio’s flagship program puts some light on the emotions he had inside the car.

“I was sitting there, wrecked on the back straightaway, nosed up in the wall,” he said. “I thought, ‘dang...’ I put it in reverse, had it running, and saw him coming. I thought, ‘that No. 3 is going to Victory Lane...this No. 5 is going to be stuck in the side of it!’

“I had it timed perfect. I popped the clutch and that car moved about a half-inch and tore the reverse gear out of it. It didn’t move. It kind of let all the wind out of my sails. I just got out and walked to my transporter. It’s probably a good thing the reverse gear did get torn out of it.”

As it happened, Labonte and Dale Sr. had tentatively scheduled a hunting trip soon after that, down in Texas, and oddly enough, Earnhardt Sr. didn’t choose to go.

“Your dad (Dale Sr.) and I would go fishing and hunting some,” Labonte said. “We made a couple of trips out to New Mexico elk-hunting, went down to the Bahamas fishing, things like that. We hunted together, but we didn’t go after that one race...he decided he didn’t want to go,” Labonte cracked with humor in his voice. “We were going to my place in Texas, and he said, ‘nah, I don’t think I want to go.’”

Nowadays, an incident like the one at Bristol will cause a major dust-up, with Tweets going back and forth and endless speculation on whether or not the drivers had talked or worked it out. Back then, not so much.

“We just got over it,” Labonte said. “We were at Darlington the next weekend, and it seemed like we started right close to each other, which always happens at times like that. At driver intros, we kind of both walked up there about the same time. John Andretti is standing there, and he looks at me, he looks at Dale and said, ‘I’m in the wrong place!’ That kind of broke the ice right there.”

Labonte had won a race at Bristol off Earnhardt Sr.’s bumper in 1995, crashing across the finish line under the checkered flag, but that isn’t the one that most remember. Labonte simply shrugged that one off. “(It was) just racing, one of those deals,” he said. “Made some cool highlights. Wouldn’t trade it for the world.”

Labonte spends most of his time in North Carolina these days. “I spend most of my time in North Carolina, we have a business (experiential marketing) over there in High Point, Archdale,” he said. The company does some 2,000 events a year and is involved with Schmidt Peterson Motorsports in Indy Car racing. It’s kind of like a real job,” he quipped.

Dale Jr., Davis and Dillner also chatted about Bigfoot and paranormal encounters on this week’s podcast. For the full discussion with Terry Labonte and all the rest, tune in to www.dalejr.com and hit the Dirty Mo Radio link at the top, or simply click here. Of course, there’s the 5:30 p.m. ET Thursday broadcast version of the Dale Jr. Download on NBC Sports Network, and the podcast is available free of charge on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, and all major podcasting platforms.