Bobby Hamilton

NASCAR fans know Bobby Hamilton as an old school veteran driver, who ran many years in the Cup series, driving for several teams. Bobby had 4 wins in the Cup series and actually got his break when he acted as the stunt driver for the Tom Cruise movie Days of Thunder. With his own truck team, he won the 2004 Craftsmen Truck Series championship.

During the early weeks of the '06 season Hamilton was diagnosed with head and neck cancer, and despite a valiant battle, passed away at age 49.

This really came as a surprise to me since the last time I saw him interviewed he seemed to be making progress, but you could see that the hard-nosed and scrappy Hamilton had mellowed quite a bit. He'll really be missed in the garage.