Former NASCAR champion battling cancer

Published 9:00 pm Wednesday, July 26, 2006

CHARLOTTE, N.C. – Benny Parsons has beaten the odds before, rising up from the foothills of North Carolina to a job driving taxis and then all the way to the top of NASCAR.

Now he’ll try to win an even bigger battle – this time with cancer.

Parsons, the 1973 champion and current NASCAR commentator on NBC and TNT, was diagnosed with cancer in his left lung and began treatment Wednesday.

“It is winnable,” said Parsons, affectionately known throughout NASCAR as “BP.”

“But positive attitude is very important in this – you need to think you can win before you will win, and I will do it. I’ve got races to see won and champions to see crowned, and I’ve got granddaughters to see raised.”

Parsons said he’d never really been sick before, but began having trouble breathing a few months ago. It led him to the family physician, who diagnosed the cancer two weeks ago.

“The first thing everyone asks me is, ‘Are you a smoker?’ The answer is that I smoked my last cigarette way back in 1978, and since then I’ve hated being around smoking. I don’t even allow anyone in my foursome to smoke on the golf course.”

The 65-year-old Parsons will undergo chemotherapy three days a week for three weeks, and also will receive radiation five days a week. He’s seeing Dr. Steven Limenpani, who treated NASCAR car owner Rick Hendrick during his battle with leukemia in the late 1990s.

Parsons, who lives in Concord, plans to remain in the broadcast booth during his treatments.

Named one of NASCAR’s 50 greatest drivers in 1998, Parsons made 526 starts from 1964 until his 1988 retirement. He won 21 races, including the 1975 Daytona 500, and 20 poles.

He also had 283 top-10 finishes, led at least one lap in 192 races and finished no lower than fifth in the points from 1972 to 1980 while earning more than $4 million. He also won back-to-back ARCA titles in 1968-69 when he lived in Detroit, before getting his shot at NASCAR.

Parsons was born at his parents’ rural home in Wilkes County and eventually moved to Detroit, where he worked at a gas station and a taxi cab company owned by his father.

He was inducted into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame in 1994, and the National Motorsports Press Association’s Stock Car Racing Hall of Fame in 1995.

Parsons began his broadcasting career in the 1980s as a pit reporter for ESPN and TBS, when he was still racing a partial schedule. He moved into the booth for good in 1989 for ESPN and won a Cable ACE Award for best sports analyst.

Around the track

Appeals by Childress team turned down: NASCAR denied the appeals of Richard Childress Racing over penalties against Kevin Harvick’s Busch Series car, which failed inspection last month after qualifying at Daytona International Speedway.

Inspectors found unapproved aerodynamic modifications and other violations on Harvick’s car June 30.

Harvick, the Busch Series leader who also races for RCR in Nextel Cup, was docked 50 points; team owner Richard Childress lost 50 points; and crew chief Shane Wilson was suspended for six races, placed on probation for the rest of the year and fined $15,000.

A three-person panel from the commission heard and considered the appeal on Tuesday, but turned it down unanimously, saying the penalties “are correct for the infractions and circumstances in this case.”

RCR did not contest the infractions, but appealed the severity of the penalties, saying the combination of points, fines and suspension was harsher than is typical for NASCAR.

Florida developer buys MB2 Motorsports: The future of MB2 Motorsports was shored up Wednesday when a Florida developer purchased the majority shares of the Nextel Cup team.

Bobby Ginn, president and founder of Ginn Resorts, took over all shares owned by MB2 founder Nelson Bowers. The team fields Cup cars for Sterling Marlin and Joe Nemechek.

The ownership change gives MB2 financial security. It also means MB2 won’t have to form an alliance with one of NASCAR’s super-teams to remain competitive.

The team name will remain the same through the end of this season, but likely change in 2007.

Ginn also hopes to expand the team, which currently has two Cup cars and a development program that has Kraig Kinser in the Truck Series and Jesus Hernandez in NASCAR’s Drive for Diversity program.