• 7/1/2006
  • Kansas City, MO
  • Randy Covitz
  • The Witchita Eagle (www.kansas.com)

It started with an aching wisdom tooth.

The pain throbbed in the right side of Bobby Hamilton’s jaw, but because it’s hard to smile for the television cameras and do postrace interviews with sore gums, he put off having the tooth pulled until the NASCAR Craftsman Trucks Series season concluded last November.

When the swelling in his neck persisted, Hamilton was examined in early February. And after competing in the first three trucks races of the season, Hamilton received the dreadful news.

Hamilton had head and neck cancer embedded in the right side of his neck.

“Cancer is a strange deal,” said Hamilton, 49. “We’ve learned when it starts up around the head area, it travels downward toward the right side of your body. It just stayed in my neck. It froze there.”

Before embarking on a series of chemotherapy and radiation treatments, Hamilton, a four-time winner on the Nextel Cup circuit and the 2004 Craftsman Trucks Series champion, faced some major decisions.

As owner of Bobby Hamilton Racing, he was responsible for operating two other racing teams. So Hamilton imported his son Bobby Hamilton Jr. from Bobby Dotter’s Green Light Racing and put him — and the future of BHR — in the seat of his Dodge.

Bobby Hamilton Jr. will be in the field for the O’Reilly Auto Parts 250 on Saturday at Kansas Speedway, but his thoughts will be with his father, who is recuperating at his home near Nashville, Tenn.

“It’s really been an emotional ride,” said Bobby Hamilton Jr. “I worry about my dad. On top of that, I’ve never had to feel the pressure as far as, ‘We have a sponsor for this year and next year. If things don’t work out good, if we go out there and flop around and don’t perform like Fastenal is expecting, we may not have anything in two years.’

“So then we have 60-some-odd employees wondering what is going to happen. So the pressure is just unbelievable.”

Hamilton’s biggest motivation, however, is keeping up his dad’s spirits.

“This makes me more determined than anything,” said Hamilton Jr. “Seeing my dad smile after we run good or seeing that he is enjoying how the shop is doing what it is supposed to be doing…. With him being there and sitting back in the shop and tinkering with things and working with the guys, that’s really what’s keeping everybody going.”

In Hamilton Jr.’ s first race in the No. 18 truck, he won the pole at Martinsville and finished 10th. The next week, he finished seventh at Gateway outside St. Louis. Since then, it’s been a struggle with no finish better than 13th in the past six races.

The news of his father’s illness had a profound effect on Hamilton Jr., whose wife, Stephanie, has lost several family members to cancer.

“My way of dealing with it was not talking about it because I didn’t have the words,” Hamilton Jr. said. “When people asked how my dad was, I said, ‘He’s fine. He’s just taking a break.’ I looked at it like he was just on a beach somewhere hanging out. The fact is, he’s battling cancer. We’re not going to beat it if one of us is hiding from it. We have to be behind him.

“But I know there might be a day — and I hope to God it never happens — that I might lose him. We weren’t a family that would pat on each other or hug on each other before a race. But now, I make sure that every time I leave him — if I’m leaving the shop or if he walks out the door — I’ll tell him I love him.”

Hamilton Sr. finished chemotherapy treatments and radiation on June 7. He lost his voice for a bit, endured a terrible sore throat and battled fatigue. He hasn’t given up on returning for the final race of the season on Nov. 17 at Homestead Speedway outside Miami.

“I will be back at the track as soon as my white blood count gets higher,” Hamilton Sr. said. “I’m anxious but will do what the doctor ordered.”

During his illness, Hamilton stayed busy by spearheading Craftsman For a Cure, a charity benefiting the American Cancer Society Relay for Life and the Victory Junction Gang Camp for children with chronic illnesses. Through auctions of memorabilia, ticket packages to races and items autographed by NASCAR drivers, more than $50,000 was raised, and donations are still pouring in.

“It’s a part of life,” Hamilton said of his cancer. “I don’t like it, but it’s going to make me a better person at the end. It’s going to make me give back, and that’s what we’re trying to do with this Craftsman For a Cure. I will always be involved in things like this if I can.

“Drivers carry a shield around them, and they are afraid if they let that shield down, then that’s a little bit of a weakness. The one thing I have learned is everybody is going to deal with this at some point in their life. Everybody knows somebody or has had a family member go through it.”

While undergoing chemotherapy or radiation, Hamilton was offered VIP treatment at the hospital because there were so many race fans there wanting to wish him well, but he refused to take private entrances or stay in isolated rooms.

“I look at human life different now,” Hamilton said. “I talk to patients at the hospital every day. I want to sit right out there with them. I have learned to cherish everybody’s life. We’re all human beings. Do some of us live right? Probably not. Do all of us live right? No.

“Somebody will get mad on the highway and say, ‘You blankety-blank.’ That’s not me anymore. When somebody calls or stops by and asks, ‘Is there anything we can do?’ I’ll say, ‘Don’t forget to hug your wife or your kids or your grandkids tonight and tell them that you love them. Make sure you do that every night.’

“That’s what you learn going through something like this.”