CORNELIUS, N.C. _ When NASCAR opens its season later this month at Daytona International Speedway, legendary team owner and engine builder Robert Yates will be back in North Carolina, preparing for what he hopes is the final round of a successful battle against liver cancer.
Much is known about Yates' hall-of-fame worthy career, which as a team owner includes a Cup championship, three Daytona 500 victories and the reputation as perhaps the sport's most innovative and successful engine builder.
Less is known about what he has overcome to get there.
He has faced a series of health setbacks dating to the days when he was growing up the son of a Baptist preacher and the youngest of nine children in Charlotte's Plaza-Midwood neighborhood.
Yates, 73, has suffered from rheumatic fever, sustained a life-altering concussion when he was 8, then another potentially fatal blow to the head only two years ago.
"My dad's an amazing guy and he's accomplished a lot of things," said Doug Yates, who runs what is now Roush Yates Racing. "But what I'm most proud of is how he's handled some of these things that have happened to him in his life and how he's dealt with them."
Liver cancer is just the latest.
The kind of cancer he has, called a cholangiocarcinoma, is daunting.
"These are big, bad, ugly tumors," Dr. John Martinie of Charlotte's Levine Cancer Institute said. "He has no chance of survival without the surgery. His best chance is getting into the operating room and getting to the tumor. Then he will have a very, very good chance of being alive after five years."
But Yates has never been the sort to let something stand in his way.
