Both Autosport and SPEED TV are reporting that former NASCAR Champion and TV braodcaster Benny Parsons passed away on Tuesday at the Intensive Care Unit of the Carolinas Medial Center in Charlotte, N.C.

Parsons, who was 65, had entered the hospital shortly after Christmas as the result of complications arising from the lung cancer he had been diagnosed back on July 13 last year.

The 1973 Cup champion, whose 25-year career as a driver began in 1964, won 21 races in 526 starts in NASCAR’s top division and was named one of NASCAR’s 50 greatest drivers, becoming part of the International Motorsports Hall of Fame in 1994. Parsons won the 1975 Daytona 500, and in 1982 he became the first driver to qualify a stock car at more than 200 mph for a Winston Cup race at Talledega. He also won the Coca Cola 600 in 1980.

I never got the opportunity to watch Benny Parsons race (other than in clips of races past), but  his incisive, homespun and informative manner when calling various NASCAR races played a major part in my growing appreciation and love for stock car racing after years of being an open-wheel purist.

In recent years Benny also adopted the internet as a way to communicate with racing fans, including his own blog.

Sunday afternoons without Benny’s voice will never seem the same.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 16th, 2007 at 11:51 pm and is filed under Drivers, NASCAR, TV. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.