43 Facts About Benny Parsons

Benny Parsons became famous as the 1973 NASCAR Winston Cup Series champion, and was a 2017 NASCAR Hall of Fame inductee.

Benny Parsons was the older brother of former NASCAR driver, car owner, and broadcaster Phil Parsons of Phil Parsons Racing.

Benny Parsons was nicknamed "BP" and The Professor, the latter in part because of his popular remarks and relaxed demeanor.

Benny Parsons spent his childhood years in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina and played football at Millers Creek High School.

Benny Parsons worked at a gas station and drove cabs in Detroit before beginning his racing career.

The driver of the car never showed up for that evening's race, and Benny Parsons drove the car in a race for the first time later that night.

Benny Parsons later moved to Ellerbe, North Carolina and always called it home.

Benny Parsons began his NASCAR career by running a single race in 1964 for Holman-Moody with a young Cale Yarborough.

Benny Parsons won the 1968 and 1969 ARCA championships, and then moved to Ellerbe, North Carolina.

Benny Parsons had three top-10 finishes in four NASCAR races in 1969.

Benny Parsons joined the NASCAR circuit full-time in 1970 with crew chief John Hill.

Benny Parsons had 23 top-10 finishes in 45 races, a pole at Langley Field Speedway, and finished eighth in the final point standings.

Benny Parsons had 18 top-10 finishes in 35 starts in 1971, including his first win at South Boston Speedway.

Benny Parsons saw his championship hopes start to fade as he was involved in a lap 13 crash and his car was heavily damaged.

Benny Parsons took to the pits to muster whatever he could out of the car and hope for a top five finish in the final standings.

The rest of the garage was hoping to see the underdog unseat the mighty Richard Petty and joined in to help Benny Parsons' crew put the car back together.

Benny Parsons miraculously got back on the track 136 laps later and completed enough laps to finish 25th and take the 1973 championship.

Richard Petty, with the championship in his sights after winning the pole and seeing Benny Parsons' accident, had engine trouble and was relegated to a 35th-place finish.

Benny Parsons became the only person to win both ARCA and NASCAR championships.

Benny Parsons finished between third and fifth in the final points standings from 1974 to 1980, and won the 1975 Daytona 500.

Benny Parsons won the 1980 World 600 at Charlotte and the Los Angeles Times 500 and finished 3rd in points.

Benny Parsons had wins at Nashville Speedway USA, the final race at Texas World Speedway, and Richmond.

Benny Parsons raced in about half of the races between 1983 and 1986 for owner Johnny Hayes.

Benny Parsons appeared in the 1983 Burt Reynolds movie Stroker Ace.

Benny Parsons joined Hendrick Motorsports in 1987 as a substitute driver for Tim Richmond, who was stricken with AIDS.

Benny Parsons was able to continue, but had to make several pit stops for repairs.

Hyde sarcastically told Benny Parsons to hit the pace car on a restart because it was the only thing on the track that Benny Parsons had not hit.

Benny Parsons drove the No 90 Bulls Eye BBQ Ford for Junie Donlavey in his final NASCAR season in 1988 and then moved to the broadcast booth, a position that he would hold until his death.

Benny Parsons is credited with discovering former NASCAR driver Greg Biffle at a "Gong Show" held in Tucson, Arizona.

Benny Parsons began announcing as a pit reporter in the 1980s on ESPN and TBS while he was still racing part-time.

Benny Parsons received an ESPN Emmy in 1996, and the ACE Award in 1989.

Benny Parsons appears in the videogames NASCAR '99, NASCAR 2000, and NASCAR 2001 as a commentator as well as an unlockable legend.

Benny Parsons later appeared in NASCAR Rumble as a legend in the game as well as NASCAR Thunder 2002, NASCAR Thunder 2003, and NASCAR Thunder 2004 as an unlockable driver and featured the game in NBC and TNT telecasts where Parsons did EA Sports Thunder Motion where he took viewers on a virtual ride of each track.

Benny Parsons co-hosted coverage of Winston Cup Qualifying on North Carolina radio station WFMX with Mark Garrow in the early '90s.

Benny Parsons continued to co-host a radio program called "Fast Talk" on Performance Racing Network with Doug Rice until his death.

Benny Parsons had a podcast available on iTunes, in conjunction with CNN called "The CNN Radio Racing Report with Benny Parsons," who talks about NASCAR with CNNRadio's Michael Jones.

In 2005, Benny Parsons made a cameo appearance as himself in the movie Herbie: Fully Loaded.

Benny Parsons began having trouble breathing in the summer of 2006.

Benny Parsons announced later that the treatment had been successful, and that he had a clean bill of health.

Benny Parsons's health prevented him from attending a ceremony in November 2006 where he was to be presented with the Myers Brothers Award, honoring his contributions to racing.

On December 26,2006, Benny Parsons was readmitted to the hospital and placed in intensive care because of complications relating to lung cancer.

On January 16,2007, Benny Parsons died of complications from lung cancer treatment in the intensive care unit of the Carolinas Medical Center in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Benny Parsons is buried near his childhood home in Purlear, North Carolina, which is the site of Benny Parsons' Rendezvous Ridge.