These days, using terms like “last race” can be dangerous.

But, as it stands right now, Sunday’s Dickies 500 at Texas Motor Speedway will be the 848th and final Nextel Cup start for two-time Cup series champion Terry Labonte.

If Labonte had his way, nobody would be making a big deal out of that.

“I’ve been doing this for a long time, and I’ve been very fortunate over the years to be with some good teams and win some races and a couple of championships,” said the 49-year-old native of Corpus Christi, Texas. “I don’t know, I just felt like the right place for me to run my last race was in Texas.”

But will this really be it, or could the winner of 22 Cup races be lured back for the occasional run?

“Not that I know of,” he said. “I’m not planning on it. I had someone come knock on my door in Charlotte wanting to know if I wanted to go to Atlanta, and I said, ‘Nope.’ The guy says, ‘So I don’t need to talk money?’ I said, ‘Nope.’

“Maybe after I sit out for a while I might change my mind or start missing it or something, but as of right now, I sure am looking forward to life after the Texas race.”

Terry Labonte, driver of the #44 Kellogg's Chevrolet, waits to qualify for the NASCAR Nextel Cup Series Pocono 500 on June 9, 2006 at the Pocono Raceway in Long Pond, Pennsylvania.

As he completes a second part-time season after racing full time for 26 years, Labonte certainly deserves to walk away on his own terms. But all he can talk about is how lucky he has been.

“I just feel so fortunate that I’ve been able to compete in the sport as long as I have and been able to do so many things that I’ve had the opportunity to do,” Labonte said. “I still feel very fortunate to have been able to make a living at something I love doing. I never dreamed that I would be able to have a career as long as I’ve had.”

The last 11 of those full-time seasons have come at Hendrick Motorsports, where Labonte won his second championship in 1996.

“Terry is one of the most unselfish people I’ve ever met,” car owner Rick Hendrick said. “He’ll always do what’s best for the team. … Terry could’ve accomplished even more in his career had he been a little more selfish, but there’s not a selfish bone in his body. He’s never been one of those guys with his hand up for anything.”

Labonte started racing on short tracks in southern Texas and said that early on, he never really gave much thought about racing at NASCAR’s top levels.

“Racing the short tracks down there it was a lot different back then,” Labonte said. “You didn’t go home on Sunday and watch races on TV. They weren’t on TV. You didn’t ride down the road listening to it on the radio because they weren’t on the radio, in Texas anyway. You’d look in the newspaper on Monday and see who won the race, and that was about it. … The Daytona 500 was on closed circuit TV and I remember going to a theater downtown with my dad and watching it.”

Terry Labonte, left, and team owner Rick Hendrick celebrate Labonte's 1996 Winston Cup Series championship, his second title.

But while he was racing at a track in Houston, a promoter introduced Labonte to Billy Hagan.

“Billy started sponsoring our car down there in south Texas, and we raced in Houston and San Antonio,” Labonte said. “He called one day and gave me the opportunity to move to North Carolina and run his Cup car five times that year.”

That was in 1978. Labonte ran those five races, and the next year he ran all 31 on the Cup schedule. He got his first victory the next year, in the 1980 Southern 500 at Darlington, then won a championship with Hagan in 1984.

“I don’t think there’s anyone out there that drives a car like Terry,” said Gary DeHart, his longtime crew chief at Hendrick Motorsports. “He has his own unique way of driving – very consistent and very smooth.

“If you were to ever go to a test and watch Terry make lap after lap after lap, you’d see how consistent and precise he is. I think that’s his biggest attribute. He’s just got that ability to be extremely consistent in the race car.”

He was also a constant at the track for 20 years. Labonte ran 655 straight races from 1980 until he missed two starts in 2000, so it has been unusual to see him running part time over the past two years. It’s not something he said he’d recommend.

“It has been a little bit tougher than I thought it was going to be,” Labonte said. “I think it wouldn’t be so bad if your team ran every week and you just drove it occasionally. But running a limited schedule when you have a team that doesn’t have any points, you know, you’re one of the last cars on the track, last cars through inspection and sometimes you don’t have the full practice sessions. You don’t learn things from week to week. You’re always trying to play catch up, seems like you’re behind a little bit.”

If Labonte sticks to his decision to make this week’s race his last, Rick Hendrick said the sport will from this point forward be missing one of its best ever.

“He’s a great talent, but he’s just a great human being,” Hendrick said. “He has always been a team player and a great friend. When you talk about the total package, that’s what you get with Terry Labonte.”