Nascar's Benny Parsons passed away today

[wayne1218]

at age 65

My prayers & blessings go out to his family!

[kbsooner21]

Aww man, no way. Damn! RIP Benny. The guy had great love and knowledge for the sport. He was such a great guy. Real down to Earth, just seemed like the type of guy who would give you the shirt off his back. Sad day for the Nascar community. Just goes to show you how precious life is and how terrible of a disease cancer is.

[bhs4life]

that really is sad ...one of my buddy's is in a group trying to bring back north wilkes speedway an BP sat down with him for lunch just last year in march...what a great loss for the sport and the country..RIP BP and your in a better place

[TheRook]

Very tough day for nascar fans everywhere.

He was a HUGE part of what Nascar is today.

[kbsooner21]

Scribe recalls Parsons as larger-than-life figure



DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- In the wake of Benny Parsons' death because of complications from lung cancer Tuesday, it seemed everyone came forth with a story illustrating Parsons' unique human side.

Driver Ricky Rudd, now a veteran of 30 seasons at NASCAR's top level of competition, remembered when he was just getting started in the sport in 1975 and Parsons, a driving star on the circuit at the time, dropped in at the Virginia salvage yard of Rudd's father. Parsons just happened to be in the area and decided he would make a little side trip to pay a visit to the Rudd family to offer an impromptu hello.

Stats at a Glance
Benny Parsons' Cup career
Year Races Ws T5s T10s Poles

1964 1 0 0 0 0
1969 4 0 2 3 0
1970 45 0 12 23 1
1971 35 1 13 18 0
1972 31 0 10 19 0
1973 28 1 15 21 0
1974 30 0 11 14 0
1975 30 1 11 17 3
1976 30 2 18 23 2
1977 30 4 20 22 3
1978 30 3 15 21 2
1979 31 2 16 21 1
1980 31 3 16 21 2
1981 31 3 10 12 0
1982 23 0 10 13 3
1983 16 0 4 5 0
1984 14 1 7 10 2
1985 14 0 1 6 0
1986 16 0 2 4 1
1987 29 0 6 9 0
1988 27 0 0 1 0
Totals 526 21 199 283 20

"It turned out my dad was short-handed that day, and the next thing you know Benny worked the rest of the day," Rudd said. "He started getting on the telephone and helping him out. It was kind of funny how it turned out. I think he even enjoyed it. That just shows you how level-headed Benny was. He never forgot where he came from."

Driver Elliott Sadler talked about how, when he was 12 years old, his brother Hermie was a suite mate with Benny's son, Keith, at the University of North Carolina.

"At the time, we were race fans and all and we knew of Keith, but we really didn't put two and two together until he invited us all over to meet his dad," Sadler said.

Next thing Elliott knew, he and his brother were getting an invite to Thanksgiving dinner at the Parsons' household. Sadler remembers little about sitting down at dinner, but lots about looking over Benny's old racing trophies and playing Pictionary with the racing legend after the dishes had been put away.

"He was the same then as he was the last time I saw him at the racetrack," Sadler said. "He was genuinely a great, great guy. Whether you were the driver of the 24 car or a driver of a team that was just here for a day-to-day basis and didn't know what your future was ... He really didn't put a value on what you did in the sport, but more on what kind of person you were."

You didn't even have to be a driver or someone he knew previously from NASCAR to benefit from Parsons' largesse of friendliness and generosity. In 2000, while doing research for a book on the rich and colorful history of the sport, it was quickly suggested by many racing insiders that Parsons would be a wealth of information.

Having had no personal contact with him whatsoever prior to that time, however, I had no idea how Parsons would respond to a request for a one-on-one, sit-down interview -- especially one that was expected to run a minimum of at least 30 minutes to an hour. That's because I didn't know Benny.

Parsons not only granted the interview in the studio where he did a popular call-in radio show for Performance Radio Network, he gave a command performance all his own. Only he wasn't acting, as it turned out. He was a superb storyteller, and the best of many tales he told that evening was in retrospect his own.

He talked openly of growing up in the mountains of North Carolina, and how his parents, Harold and Hazel, had to leave the area to find work north in Detroit. Benny didn't want to move, so his parents agreed to let him stay behind in the care of Julia Parsons, the young boy's beloved great-grandmother. They lived together in a clapboard house built in 1890, with no electricity or running water -- until Benny was 9 and climbed the hill behind the house to dig a ditch that allowed him to at least run a gravity-fed water line into the home.

"We dug a trench and built a reservoir, and we did have running water then," Parsons said. "But here was no pump, so there were no toilet facilities. We had an outhouse."

Parsons helped raise chickens and pigs. Items such as coffee, sugar and salt were considered luxuries by his great-grandmother, and therefore by him as well.

"It was the way of life for me at the time," Parsons said. "I didn't know any different. You know, I guess in a perfect world it would have been different for me. But it's not a perfect world. I may have turned out better off because of it."

It's not a perfect world. If it were, Parsons never would have contracted lung cancer. If it were, he would have beat it after he was diagnosed with the awful disease.

But it's not, and he didn't. Yet he was a correct in stating that he may have turned out better as a person because of his humble beginnings.

In that 2000 interview, Parsons went on to explain how he ultimately came to fall in love with racing, and by extension all those connected with it. He talked about how he stayed in touch with his parents by telephone and letters, and how when his father came back to North Carolina for visits the old man would hustle him off to Hickory Motor Speedway or to the track in nearby North Wilkesboro to watch races.

Eventually an older Benny ended up joining his parents in Detroit, where by then his dad had established a thriving gas station and taxi service that included 15 or 20 cabs. Benny's primary job was as a mechanic, helping keep the cabs running. But he also had his cab-driver's license so he could road-test the cars, and during busy times such as the Christmas season he and his father would help man the fleet by actually driving the vehicles.

That's how he came to put "taxi-cab driver" down as his occupation when he first filled out a driver's application to drive in a race at Daytona International Speedway. Even then, Benny did so with a smile and the wink of an eye. He knew it made for a good story and he didn't mind telling it or having it told, even when it got embellished a bit.

He ended up becoming a racecar driver after getting hooked up with a pair of men named Wayne Bennett and Dick Gold, who happened to stop by his father's gas station with their car on the back of a trailer attached to their truck. They were on their way to go racing in Anderson, Ind., and saw that young Benny was intrigued by the looks of their car.

"You want to come with us?" they asked.

Parsons replied that he did. Thus began a life on the road that led to 21 career victories in NASCAR's top racing level, a 1973 driving championship against all odds, and a victory in the 1975 Daytona 500.

"It was totally by chance," Parsons said of his foray into racing and how it all began with Bennett and Gold. "I happened to be there when that truck and car stopped by the gas station, only because these guys had to go to the bathroom."

No, as it turns out, it wasn't by chance. It must have been Divine Intervention. It undoubtedly was Parsons' calling.

He answered it and kept on running hard through the years, becoming one of the sport's greatest ambassadors as a broadcaster when his driving days ended. When it came to an end Tuesday, Rudd paid the man's remarkable life perhaps the finest of all compliments, cementing the legacy that counts more than all the racing victories and broadcasting achievements lumped together.

"One thing about Benny, you never really heard him say anything negative about anybody," Rudd said. "If he wasn't particularly fond of an individual -- a driver, crew chief or whatever it might be -- he didn't go there. He would skip over it rather than say something negative about somebody, which was a pretty class deal."

[10DimeBry]

good driver,better guy. thoughts and prayers go out to his family