NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) -- Bobby Hamilton, the longtime NASCAR driver who won the 2001 Talladega 500 and was the 2004 Craftsman Truck Series champion, died Sunday of cancer, said Liz Allison, a family friend who co-hosted a radio show with Hamilton. He was 49.
Hamilton was at home with his family when he died, said Allison, the widow of former NASCAR star Davey Allison.
``The thing I loved about Bobby Sr. so much is that he treated everybody the same,'' Allison said. ``It didn't matter if you were one of the drivers he competed against or a fan he'd never laid eyes on before.
``He didn't have a pretentious bone in his body. I think that's why people were drawn to him. He was just very real and had a way of relating to everyone.''
Hamilton was diagnosed with head and neck cancer in February. A malignant growth was found when swelling from dental surgery did not go down.
He raced in the season's first three events, with a best finish of 14th at Atlanta Motor Speedway, before turning over the wheel to his son, Bobby Hamilton Jr. The senior Hamilton then started chemotherapy and radiation treatment.
By August, he had returned to work at Bobby Hamilton Racing in Mount Juliet, about 20 miles east of Nashville, and doctors indicated his CAT scans looked good. But microscopic cancer cells remained on the right side of his neck.
``Cancer is an ongoing battle, and once you are diagnosed you always live with the thought of the disease in your body,'' Hamilton said in an article posted on NASCAR's Web site last month. ``It is the worst thing you could ever imagine.''
Hamilton, born in Nashville in 1957, drove in all of NASCAR's top three divisions, making 371 starts and winning four times in what is now the Nextel Cup series. He won 10 truck races and one Busch Series race.
``I love what I do; I love this business,'' he said in March 2006 when he disclosed that he had cancer. ``NASCAR has been good to me, and I just don't feel comfortable when I am not around it.''
Hamilton's Nextel Cup wins, in addition to Talladega, came at Phoenix, Rockingham and Martinsville. His best season was in 1996 when he finished ninth in the points standings. He won his first Cup race that year, at Phoenix.
Hamilton drove in the top-level NASCAR series from 1989-05, earning $14.3 million and racing to 20 top-five finishes.
He became a full-time driver-owner in the truck series in 2003.
Another NASCAR favorite, 1973 Winston Cup champion Benny Parsons, was diagnosed with cancer in his left lung in July. He was checked into intensive care last week at a North Carolina hospital.
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I find it amazing that with all the money these athletes make and the stipulations in their contratcs for physicals and such, that this wasn't caught sooner. He didn't even last a year after they detected the cancer.
I find it amazing that with all the money these athletes make and the stipulations in their contratcs for physicals and such, that this wasn't caught sooner. He didn't even last a year after they detected the cancer.
I don't know anything about cancer or how fast it spreads once you have it, but I assume it is detectable through blood/lab tests that would be done yearly. This was detected because of a dental surgery swelling not going away and it was already in his head and neck by that time. Again maybe its my ignorance of cancer and its time from contraction to how fast it spreads and symptoms to the person.
RIP. cancer can spread fast and mostly can be traced with blood test that show white blood cell counts versus red, etc.
I had lung cancer at 12 years ago at the ripe age of 18 . never smoked, drank, was in the best shape of my life as I just had graduated from HS. pulled out a tumor the size of a grapefruit, grew in 6-8 months..
I don't know anything about cancer or how fast it spreads once you have it, but I assume it is detectable through blood/lab tests that would be done yearly. This was detected because of a dental surgery swelling not going away and it was already in his head and neck by that time. Again maybe its my ignorance of cancer and its time from contraction to how fast it spreads and symptoms to the person.
Different cancers affect different people differently.
Doing blood work or a typical annual physical isn't a one-stop-shop process. If the doctor isn't looking for something specific there is a good chance he could miss something obscure.
Checking for Testicular Cancer won't necessarily reveal a brain tumor...well, in my case it might but for most guys it wouldn't.
RIP. cancer can spread fast and mostly can be traced with blood test that show white blood cell counts versus red, etc.
I had lung cancer at 12 years ago at the ripe age of 18 . never smoked, drank, was in the best shape of my life as I just had graduated from HS. pulled out a tumor the size of a grapefruit, grew in 6-8 months..
I lost 1 lung out of it, however I did survive..
Wow. Glad you made it. Were there any detectable signs?
Wow. Glad you made it. Were there any detectable signs?
I was actually horsing around with my girlfriend at the time, I was getting shortness of breath and some chest pain.. took me to the ER, they did an Xray and it looked like a white cloud on the xray on the results. did not know what it was at the time. later that night we found out what it was. I had my surgery the next day which was on a Sunday and Mothers day that year. went through Chemo for 6 mo, etc..
During surgery, my heart stopped and the other lung collapsed. I had the best heart surgeon in the state and they had me revived in a matter seconds..
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