After Major Cancer Scare, NASCAR Hall of Famer Bobby Labonte’s Return to Racing Cheers NASCAR Community

Bobby Labonte is very well-known among the NASCAR fan community. Why wouldn’t they know about a Hall of Famer, a Cup Series winner, and someone who’s been in the sport for 25 years plus? But his reticent nature also meant people didn’t know too much about his personal life until later.

In an interview, he opened up about a major life-changing event that hit him a couple of years back. Speaking to the NASCAR Race Hub, he narrated how a visit to the doctor because of feeling “sluggish” turned into something so much more severe.

Labonte said, “So I go to my local doctor, and he said, ‘I found this little spot on your kidney. We really need to keep an eye on this.” After two years of intensively tracking the ‘spot’, noticeably it had tripled. It meant surgery was necessary to save him.

Given the statistics behind patients with a similar illness, he wasn’t too optimistic, as one-third of them didn’t survive. But surgery helped him. Labonte recalled the time when the doctor broke the news about cancer. “He [the doctor] said, ‘We got everything, everything looks great.’ He said, ‘But it was cancer.’ And he said, It was very aggressive”.

He also explained why he was, possibly for the first time, speaking so openly about his personal life. “Usually, I’m not the ‘share’ type of guy and you won’t know a lot of things about me. But it didn’t take me long to figure out if we could help one person, just help one person, man…”

“There’s a ton of cancers out there that can be treatable for sure and this was one if you catch it early, like we did, we were fortunate enough to be able to take care of it.”

Thankfully though, 1 year after that surgery, the 58-year-old is here with good news.

Bobby Labonte and the famed #18 return to NASCAR

In great news, Bobby Labonte announced his return to racing. He made his Sadler/Stanley Racing debut last season when he raced for the team in Martinsville. Now it is official that he will be racing for SS Racing in the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour season in 2023.

It overjoyed fans to hear the news –

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The story of Bobby’s return is one that inspires and motivates. He went through a rough battle, but he found the strength to return to doing what he loves.