AVONDALE, Ariz. -- Bobby Labonte has signed a one-year contract to drive TRG Motorsports' car in 2010 -- and at least for the season-opening Daytona 500 he'll have a teammate in TRG's hoped-for full-time second car.

On Saturday morning at Phoenix International Raceway, TRG owner Kevin Buckler and Labonte announced the deal and a 12-race primary sponsorship with TaxSlayer.com, a provider of online tax preparation software, that Buckler hopes will be the first of several.

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Bobby's shown he can still get the job done. He makes the most with the least these last couple years, and we're going to give him more, now.

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KEVIN BUCKLER

"I've got to thank Kevin for giving me this opportunity -- I went to Atlanta and it's been game on since then," Labonte said. "The thing that I like the most about Kevin is that he has a passion for race cars, passion for racing and a passion for cars. Kevin has a plan, and I'm excited to be a part of it.

"The thing that I like about it is Kevin's will and determination to be at the forefront of this sport. I look at it over the past few weeks and everybody, at one point in time had to start somewhere, they all had to make sacrifices so here's another story that years from now you'll say Kevin wasn't sure, but he's putting all the right pieces together and doing things the right way."

One thing Buckler is sure of is having Labonte drive his car.

"Bobby's the total package, and our meeting, getting together and looking at the future together is about as perfect as it gets," Buckler said. "The biggest thing about Bobby is he's so level-headed. We're in a super-competitive, visceral sport in which sometimes you can easily make errors in judgment because of all the outside distractions, the adrenaline and everything else.

"So to be able to control that, to me, is one of the most impressive things in a professional race car driver. You don't win a Sprint Cup championship without having that, and Bobby's shown he can still get the job done. He makes the most with the least these last couple years, and we're going to give him more, now; rallying around him and making him the center of attention and building the program around our driver.

"He likes that and he needs that and he, on the other hand, brings a lot to the table with his level-headed approach and being able to cut through a lot of the BS a lot of the time; and he's great with the fans, sponsors and media. The guys are in awe of him for what he's accomplished, but the more veteran guys on the crew are even more in awe of him because he doesn't wear that on his sleeve."

Getting the rest of the sponsorship in place is a big priority.

"This is a big deal for us, since we've signed Bobby and we've signed our first big sponsor, in these tough economic times," Buckler said. "TaxSlayer has signed up for 12 races, right out of the box, and we're launching a second team. We're talking to multiple sponsors and obviously even drivers right now.

"We're hoping this is the new face of the sport: leaner, meaner and efficient on our spending and trying to put our money into competition [not overhead]. The biggest advantages we have are we know how to race, we know how to run a small business and we have a clean balance sheet, which might be our secret weapon because we feel that gives us a competitive price advantage. We do not have huge overhead with this company -- all the things we've done, we've done for cash because it's a cash world right now -- and we're very, very motivated.

"So right now we're positioned to put a lot of our incoming revenue into the competition side, and I think that's what a lot of the new sponsors want to see, they want to see their money being spent wisely and everyone wants to stretch their dollar. Still, I'm totally in awe of what these big teams are able to accomplish, and we have a long way to go to catch up to them in a lot of areas, but in other areas we're doing a real good job.

"I wake up every morning at 4 o'clock and I go to work, and I love it. I'm thinking I'm up two hours before everybody else -- I'm gonna kick their butt. Our whole goal was to come to Sprint Cup, start a team, start a second team to have a multi-car team sort of following on the same path as we've done on the Grand-Am Rolex side."

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We're kind of newer and younger and hungrier in terms of the way we market. ... We're trying to find a new way to build that mousetrap.

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KEVIN BUCKLER

Buckler said he appreciated Labonte's commitment considering all the deals that remain to be signed.

"The confidence factor, I think with everybody here is high, with Bobby coming on board, [executive vice president/chief marketing officer] Torrey Galida and [team manager] Mike Brown coming board; we've got a group of people assembled here that feel the love, I like to say," Buckler said. "I get up every morning and I've got a fire in my belly -- I want to win, I want to do well.

"We have so many balls in the air right now, deals that are about to tip over that we feel no issues in announcing the driver and the first sponsor, because the other sponsors are all ready to follow suit and hopefully bleed onto the second car. We all feel pretty good about that."

One of the biggest short-term decisions TRG must make is which car manufacturer to align itself. Buckler said he hopes to have that decision made right after Homestead.

"We're talking to several manufacturers right now, we're in the middle of some strong negotiations with them, and as usual we have to do what's best for the team," Buckler said. "I tend to be very, very loyal about stuff, maybe too much so; but I've got a lot of partners and other people to consider here, and our final decision needs to be based on what's best for TRG Motorsports."

Labonte became available when Hall of Fame Racing decided to go a different direction with its program that's being run this season by Yates Racing, leaving Labonte available for seven races this fall. So far he's run five of them in TRG's No. 71 Chevrolet, which has competed all season despite being cash-strapped much of the time. Buckler's confident that won't be the case in 2010.

"I'm going to be real excited to have what I consider to be a proper budget next year and to be able to race the teams here," Buckler said. "Because we didn't have a proper budget at any point this year and we still were reasonably competitive."

TRG missed the Daytona 500 with Mike Wallace, but then hired David Gilliland to drive its go-or-go-home car and has made the next 33 races, including one by Andy Lally and five by Labonte.

"The situation with the economy has made the whole thing more interesting, more complex and in some ways more beneficial for us," Buckler said. "I met with people around the [2009] Daytona 500 and said we wanted TRG Motorsports to be the new model for the sport -- the new paradigm -- and they looked at me like I was nuts, but lo and behold, things have started to fall into place ever so perfectly."

A short time ago, TRG signed former Ford Racing and Roush Fenway Racing marketing executive Galida as its executive vice president and chief marketing officer and his impact has been immediate.

"He brings a lot because what happens is Torrey's been involved in the highest levels of NASCAR, he knows how the Jack Roushes and Rick Hendricks used to see it -- he knows how to get it done," Buckler said. "But he also knows some of the weaknesses of our opponents, where they're weaker and how we can beat them.

"Can we beat them in the board room? Can we beat them on the fact that we're kind of newer and younger and hungrier in terms of the way we market; viral, Web, EZ 3-screen -- things some of these guys aren't even working on yet, they're just doing it in the regular, old way.

"We're trying to find a new way to build that mousetrap and Torrey brings a wealth of experience in terms of hard-core NASCAR, and he's a boardroom-savvy guy. We hope we can divide and conquer where he's in one part of the country and I'm in another, and we're both getting [stuff] done."

Buckler, who has the Adobe Road Winery and a thriving sport- car operation -- which might include Labonte in a five-car lineup Buckler is planning for the 2010 Rolex 24, has partly relocated to North Carolina.

"He's in a meeting and I'm in a different meeting," Buckler said of Galida. "We go to New York together and we go to separate meetings, but we're very complimentary. He's maybe a little more polished than I am where I'll kick the door open, so we complement each other very well."

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