Parsons battling lung cancer

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 in Charlotte, N.C.

“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.”

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 was in good spirits and said he felt fine after his first treatment.

RCR’s appeals denied

NASCAR said it has turned down an appeal from Richard Childress Racing on all three penalties arising from Kevin Harvick’s Busch Series car failing post-qualifying inspection June 30 at Daytona International Speedway in Daytona Beach, Fla.

Harvick, the Busch Series leader who also races for RCR in Nextel Cup, lost 50 points, team owner 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 after NASCAR inspectors found unapproved modifications to truck area “to enhance aerodynamic performance,” an unapproved deck lid and missing shock absorber access doors.