Battlin' Benny

   Alas, it's true.

   A NASCAR fan favorite, Benny Parsons, is battling lung cancer.

   I was in Lubbock, Texas, of all places, when I first heard the shocking news.  My daughter phoned from Mooresville, N.C., to say that she had learned of Benny's affliction via "a friend of a friend."

   I didn't believe it.

   "Aw, honey," I said, "rumors like this about racing people somehow get started every now and then."

   It was no rumor.

   Three days after I returned home to Mooresville from West Texas a statement was issued on Benny's behalf confirming his disease and revealing that treatment was beginning immediately.

   Benny, a non-smoker since 1978, expressed confidence that he will beat the cancer. 

   Those of us who  have known Benny since he returned to the South to go NASCAR racing 42 years ago are optimistic, too.  We're aware that within this friendly, people-loving man beats the heart of a very determined battler. 

   Otherwise, Benny never would have risen to the heights of his sport in the manner that he did.

   Let me relate the inspring story of Benny Parsons...   

   The oft-told tale that Benny drove a taxi as a young man in Detroit is not true.

   What is true is that Benny hitched a ride in the back of a pickup truck in Detroit to go watch a race in that area for the first time.  And he wound up driving in the event!

   The cab-driver story got started because Benny's father owned a small cab company that he operated out of a service station in Detroit.  Benny, who had grown up in his family's native Wilkes County in North Carolina, had gone to Michigan to work there after graduating from Millers Creek High School.

   As Benny recalls it, "Late one Friday afternoon some guys I knew came by the station and stopped for gas.  They were towing a jalopy of a race car with their pickup truck.

   "I said that I would like to go with them to a race sometime, and they told me to hop in the truck and come along right then.  My dad let me off early, so I tagged along.  I volunteered to drive their race car when the regular driver was a no-show."

   Even Benny isn't certain where he finished in the race.

   What is certain is that it was the beginning of a racing career that would lead to a NASCAR Winston Cup Series championship and, subsequently, to international popularity as a commentator on motorsports telecasts.

   "Hard to believe, isn't it?" says Benny.

   When Benny's father and mother moved North to find work during the tough times of the 1950s, Benny stayed behind in Wilkes County.  He lived with his great grandmother in the remote, sparsely-populated community of Parsonsville, deep in the Blue Ridge Mountains.

   As racing fans know, Wilkes County is rich in NASCAR lore.  It was there that a local businessman, Enoch Staley, carved out a race track atop a hill not long after World War II.  In 1948, Staley was a key associate in helping Bill France Sr. form the organization that became NASCAR.  Staley's North Wilkesboro Speedway became one of the first tracks with NASCAR affiliation.

   Wilkes County also produced Junior Johnson. a legendary driver and one of the winningest team owners of all time.

   Despite this environment, Benny didn't follow racing much as a teenager.  He was more interested in playing baseball and football on the Millers Creek High teams.  Benny was so devoted to the sports that when practice ran late, he would walk all the way home--about 10 miles--to his great grandmother's mountainside cottage.  She would greet him in the darkness, fretting that he'd not been able to have supper on time.

   "I rationalized that someday those long treks home would help me realize my dreams of playing college baseball and football," recalls Benny.  "Heck, they might even make my dream of playing for the Detroit Tigers come true.

   "But after that first jalopy race I competed in, I wanted to become a driver."

   Benny pursued this goal with burning passion, and he became champion of the Automobile Racing Club of America (ARCA), the midwestern-based sanctioning body.

   In 1964 he returned home to North Carolina to seek similar success in NASCAR.

   What developed was a hall-of-fame career that would endure until Benny's retirement in 1998, providing such memories as these:

   --His tears after winning the 1973 Winston Cup championship.  Benny, driving for an underdog team, needed to finish the season finale at North Carolina Motor Speedway, near his adopted home of Ellerbe, to take the title in a major upset.  When a hard crash early in the race essentially destroyed Benny's car, it appeared his hopes for the championship also had been wrecked.  However, volunteers from other teams scavenged enough parts from their own wrecked cars to get Benny back in the race.  In a car with hardly any sheet metal at all, Benny edged Cale Yarborough for the crown.

   --Benny's grin of disbelief after he won the Daytona 500 in 1975.  David Pearson appeared to have NASCAR's biggest race in hand that day.  As the 500 wound down, Benny trailed well back in second place.  Then, Richard Petty, a lap down, came zooming by.  Benny latched onto Petty in an aerodyanmic draft and began to cut into Pearson's advantage.  Pearson very seldom made a mistake, but with two laps to go he spun coming off the second turn, leaving Benny first to the checkered flag.

   --Benny's dramatic duel with Darrell Waltrip in the 1980 World 600 at the track then known as Charlotte Motor Speedway.  With darkness falling and heavy rain threatening, they swapped the lead seven times in the final 30 laps.  Benny held the front spot for the checkered flag in what many observer's rate the most dramatic finish in the track's great history.

   --Benny's look of astonishment after becoming the first NASCAR driver to officially break the 200 mph barrier in time trials when he qualified at 200.176 for the 1982 Winston 500 at Talladega Superspeedway in Alabama.

   --Benny's jubilation at giving the Jackson Brothers, Leo and Richard, their first superspeedway victory at NASCAR's major level in the 1984 Coca-Cola 500 at Atlanta Motor Speedway.  The victory was so appreciated by the team's sponsor, U.S. Tobacco, that company officials treated Benny, the Jacksons and their other two drivers, Harry Gant and Phil Parsons, Benny's younger brother, to a week-long fishing trip to Alaska.

   The Atlanta triumph marked the last time that Benny would go to victory lane before retiring with 21 big-time triumphs.

   I have equally warm memories of Benny away from the race tracks.

   Not long after he moved to the hamlet of Ellerbe, Benny was elected president of the Parent-Teachers Association at the local elementary school his two sons attended.  One day his boys came home very glum.  They had become upset on learning that some of their classmates weren't going to receive presents or have anything special to eat on Christmas Day.

   Benny checked with teachers and learned that the poverty in the area was much worse than most people realized.

   Benny, known for his soft heart, began calling in favors from his many friends in racing.  Winter jackets, shoes, gloves and other clothing began flowing in.  So did toys, food and Christmas candy.

   A big party was scheduled at the school, and the legendary Wood Brothers, Glen and Leonard, even arranged for a chartered bus to bring a church choir down from their hometown of Stuart, Va., to sing the carols.

   The eyes of youngsters who never had experienced much of a joyous Christmas popped when Santa Claus started calling their names to receive gifts. 

   One little fellow of probably 6 or 7 made his way over to where Benny was standing.  He had a bright toy truck under one arm and a new, warm jacket under the other.  He tugged at the leg of Benny's trousers.  "Mr. Benny," he said, "what am I supposed to do with these."

   "Take them home, son," Benny replied.  "They're yours."

   "To keep?!" the amazed kid said, prompting a lump the size of a baseball to develop in Benny's throat.

   To benefit the PTA, Benny once even gussied himself up in drag for a "Womanless Wedding Contest" at the school.  Judging was "reversed," with the least attractive entrant taking the crown.  Benny looked absolutely hideous, and because he didn't win--er, lose--I've always contended that contest was fixed.

   After Benny joined ESPN and began winning major awards for his television work, proud relatives and friends began holding cookouts in his honor when he came back home for the fall races at North Wilkesboro Speedway.  The dinners were held at the site of his great grandmother's old "homeplace" overlooking the magnificent Parsonsville Valley.  Tables sagged to overflowing with fried chicken, barbecue pork, filets of fish caught that very day, home-grown vegetables and enough freshly-baked cakes and pies to fill a bakery.

   One autumn the "menu" included a deep-fried dish that looked something like chicken nuggets.  When I asked why this food didn't seem to be appearing on a lot of plates, a friend answered in a whisper and I wasn't surprised any more.

   But the kids playing tag in the idyllic setting had no reservation about partaking of this particular food, and every time they ran by the table, they'd grab some of the nuggets and pop them into their mouth.   Then, some of their moms saw what they were doing and shrieks echoed up the hollow and over the ridges.

   What the kids were devouring like M & Ms were "mountain oysters," or sheep testicles.

   A blushing Benny apologized profusely, although he'd had no way of knowing that a mischievous cousin had slipped those "oysters" onto the table among the meat balls and mashed 'taters and chocolate  chip cookies.

   "How embarrassing was it?" I asked Benny later.

   "At the time, it felt worse than hitting the wall on the first lap, which I have done," asserted Benny.  "But I laugh about it now."

   Benny also got a chuckle a day or so after the revelation that he has cancer.

   Charlotte sports broadcaster Jim Celania, a cancer survivor, phoned to offer encouragement.  Cracked Celania, whom balding Benny had worked alongside on a local TV show, "On the bright side, Benny, you don't have to worry about your hair falling out."   

   Benny maintains confidence that treatment will lead to his being fully cured.

   Considering his record as a battler, that optimism seems well-founded.