RIP Benny Parsons
If you looked in the stock car dictionary under "decent real people" you would find an entry for Benny Parsons. Unfortunately, complications from cancer killed BP. And those complications killed one of stock car racing's best ambassadors. Benny was universally liked--no one had a bad word to say about him. I remember engineering a remote broadcast that Benny did from Watkins Glen for WFMX-FM in the Charlotte, NC area. Though I did nothing special (at least I thought so), BP said that my preparations for that broadcast (notes, etc.) were better than most he had in other venues, and he always nodded or said a hello when we met later on in the garage area, media center and other racing venues. That personal memory is but one of many you'll read elsewhere.
What is sad, is that the racing community lost not just a past champion. It lost a person whose example of goodness and decency, was able to counter a lot of that which is not good and decent in the sport. Let us hope his example prevails in the future.
Paul Kaminski
1/18/2007
