Tough week in NASCAR continues...

[laughedatbytime]

Damn... :(

 

Martin Truex Jr. will miss Friday's practice and qualifying sessions at Michigan International Speedway.

 

According to a release issued by the team Wednesday afternoon, Sherry Pollex, his longtime partner and girlfriend, was recently diagnosed with ovarian cancer.

 

"Sherry and Martin would like to thank the NASCAR community for all the well wishes," the release stated. "They have requested that everyone respect the family's privacy as Sherry begins her treatment and recovery."

 

Reigning Camping World Truck Series champion Matt Crafton will drive the No. 78 Furniture Row Racing Chevrolet for Truex on Friday. Truex will re-join his Furniture Row Racing team Saturday and compete in Sunday's Pure Michigan 400 Sprint Cup Series race.

 

"Everyone at Furniture Row Racing extends their thoughts and prayers to Sherry during her treatment and recovery period," said Joe Garone, Furniture Row Racing General Manager. "She is a devoted supporter of our race team and we can't wait for her return to the track."

 

Sherry's passion in life is fighting pediatric cancer. To learn more about Sherry's work with children, go to www.martintruexjrfoundation.org.

 

http://www.foxsports.com/nascar/story/martin-truex-jr-s-girlfriend-diagnosed-with-ovarian-cancer-081314?cmpid=tsmtw%3Afscom%3Anascaronfox

[KenJennings]

Read about this earlier, sorry to hear, Martin Truex always seemed like one of the nicer guys in the garage area.

[Fordgalaxy]

Read about this earlier, sorry to hear, Martin Truex always seemed like one of the nicer guys in the garage area.

 

Maybe, but he's no Dick Trickle (just wanted to use that name, no idea how nice he is or isn't).

[Cygnus 2112]

Read about this earlier, sorry to hear, Martin Truex always seemed like one of the nicer guys in the garage area.

 

Maybe, but he's no Dick Trickle (just wanted to use that name, no idea how nice he is or isn't).

Dick Trickle commited suicide in a cemetary while on the line with 911. Martin Truex has to be nicer than that.

[KenJennings]

Read about this earlier, sorry to hear, Martin Truex always seemed like one of the nicer guys in the garage area.

 

Maybe, but he's no Dick Trickle (just wanted to use that name, no idea how nice he is or isn't).

Dick Trickle commited suicide in a cemetary while on the line with 911. Martin Truex has to be nicer than that.

 

I can say from personal experience that Dick Trickle was actually a really great guy.

[Cygnus 2112]

Read about this earlier, sorry to hear, Martin Truex always seemed like one of the nicer guys in the garage area.

 

Maybe, but he's no Dick Trickle (just wanted to use that name, no idea how nice he is or isn't).

Dick Trickle commited suicide in a cemetary while on the line with 911. Martin Truex has to be nicer than that.

 

I can say from personal experience that Dick Trickle was actually a really great guy.

I didn't mean to put the guy down, I was just mentioning the only thing I know about him.

[laughedatbytime]

Read about this earlier, sorry to hear, Martin Truex always seemed like one of the nicer guys in the garage area.

 

Maybe, but he's no Dick Trickle (just wanted to use that name, no idea how nice he is or isn't).

Dick Trickle commited suicide in a cemetary while on the line with 911. Martin Truex has to be nicer than that.

 

I can say from personal experience that Dick Trickle was actually a really great guy.

Does Trickle hold the record for race wins for an American driver? He's got to be up there with all of the years he spent at Wisconsin short tracks...

[Cygnus 2112]

I believe he holds the record for most short track wins, while Richard Petty holds the record for most wins in Nascar.

[KenJennings]

Read about this earlier, sorry to hear, Martin Truex always seemed like one of the nicer guys in the garage area.

 

Maybe, but he's no Dick Trickle (just wanted to use that name, no idea how nice he is or isn't).

Dick Trickle commited suicide in a cemetary while on the line with 911. Martin Truex has to be nicer than that.

 

I can say from personal experience that Dick Trickle was actually a really great guy.

Does Trickle hold the record for race wins for an American driver? He's got to be up there with all of the years he spent at Wisconsin short tracks...

 

There was a racing historian who tried to track down the number of races Dick Trickle won, and he was in the 600s by the time he got to the 1980s, and then there were too many to count.

[Cygnus 2112]

Read about this earlier, sorry to hear, Martin Truex always seemed like one of the nicer guys in the garage area.

 

Maybe, but he's no Dick Trickle (just wanted to use that name, no idea how nice he is or isn't).

Dick Trickle commited suicide in a cemetary while on the line with 911. Martin Truex has to be nicer than that.

 

I can say from personal experience that Dick Trickle was actually a really great guy.

Does Trickle hold the record for race wins for an American driver? He's got to be up there with all of the years he spent at Wisconsin short tracks...

 

There was a racing historian who tried to track down the number of races Dick Trickle won, and he was in the 600s by the time he got to the 1980s, and then there were too many to count.

Borrowed from Wikipedia "In more than an estimated 2,200 races, Trickle logged one million laps and is believed to have won over 1,200 feature races.^[2] He was billed as the winningest short track driver in history"

[Aikenrooster]

Dick Trickle wouldn't be allowed in a Cup car today. He smoked while racing, through the helmet, and wore cowboy boots to race in. Lol.

[laughedatbytime]

Update on Sherry...it was pretty bad and there's still a long way to go. :(

 

TALLADEGA, Ala. — The pre-race kiss, a staple of the last moments between a race car driver and significant other before the green flag drops, was especially poignant in the bright Talladega Superspeedway sunshine this month for driver Martin Truex Jr. and his long-time girlfriend, Sherry Pollex.

 

Pollex was at a race track for only the second time since she had surgery Aug. 15 for ovarian cancer, just one week after the diagnosis that rocked Truex, his Furniture Row Racing Sprint Cup team and many of the families in the tight neighborhood of the NASCAR drivers' motorhome compound.

 

With a large hat protecting her head from the sun, Pollex greeted friends, some of whom were seeing her for the first time since her diagnosis and surgery. It was more of a homecoming than an occasion for talking about the hard rains that had fallen on her life.

 

There was a short pit-road prayer, a final word between the two and another kiss. And Truex was off to the races, into the only place — the cockpit of a race car — he has been able to escape tough realities. Over the course of the Talladega afternoon, he led a lap for the first time in what has been a difficult season on-track in his first year with the tiny one-car team.

 

The sense of excitement and anticipation up and down pit road was palpable in the minutes preceding the final race in the second round of the Chase for the Sprint Cup as 12 drivers prepared to run to stay alive in the playoffs. For Truex, not in the championship running, it was simply a day to appreciate things were as they should be — his arm around his girlfriend, her head on his shoulder as race-day festivities swirled around them.

 

Life has been a complex web of hospital rooms, chemotherapy treatments and days and nights of dreading what might be next in their fight against Stage III ovarian cancer (IV is the most serious).

 

"We lived our life in fourth gear all the time," Pollex, 35, told USA TODAY Sports via telephone. "We were constantly running. I ran a business and Martin's foundation and travel full-time with him. I never stopped. So adjusting to a new normal and having to put your life in first gear and learn that your body can't run like that any more is the biggest adjustment for me."

 

It has been a particularly rough journey for Truex, who sees the ebbs and flows of a battle that will stretch far beyond laps, miles and seasons.

 

"It's been a rollercoaster ride," Truex told USA TODAY Sports from his Martin Truex Jr. Motorsports shop in Mooresville, N.C. "It changes daily. You go through all different emotions from sad to mad, why the hell, why us. But at the end of the day, we're no different from anybody else who's had cancer.

 

"At first, I was shocked. Thought I was dreaming. ... It puts things in perspective real quick. All this stuff I've been mad about before and thought was a big deal, it's nothing."

 

Truex and Pollex, a native of Michigan whose father, Greg, owned a NASCAR team from 1993 to 2006, met about eight years ago when she was working in racing public relations and he was working to build his career on-track. Their relationship grew quickly, and Truex, renting a house from then-teammate Dale Earnhardt Jr., moved in with Pollex. Later, they bought a house in Mooresville, N.C., near Lake Norman in a popular residential area for NASCAR families.

 

They've been a couple since, Truex winning two Nationwide Series championships and breaking into Sprint Cup victory lane while Pollex built relationships with other drivers' wives and girlfriends, opened a popular Mooresville boutique shop called Lavendar and helped Truex start the Martin Truex Jr. Foundation.

 

The foundation's emphasis over its seven-year life has been assisting children and families touched by pediatric cancer. Pollex has been one of the biggest boosters for Charlotte-area children facing surgeries and treatments.

 

Now, the disease she has been targeting for years has hit her.

 

Pollex said she began feeling ill in mid-summer and was certain something wasn't quite right. But doctor visits produced no solid diagnosis.

 

"She had gone to three or four doctors, and they couldn't figure out what was going on," Truex said. "This went on for a couple of months. ... Finally, we got her to a surgeon — a friend of a friend — in Lake Norman. He said right away, 'Let's do a CT scan.'

 

"They did the scan. Two hours later, he called and told us to come down to the office. Right away he told us, 'You have ovarian cancer.' "

 

Neither Pollex nor Truex knew anything about the disease, one that affects only about 22,000 women in the United States annually, according to the American Cancer Society.

 

They had just begun serious consideration of having their first child. Pollex said she initially thought she was sick because she might be pregnant.

 

"I had stopped taking birth-control pills," she said. "As soon as I had the CT scan and heard the diagnosis, I did ask if I could save my eggs. The doctor told me there was no time for that. He said, 'We have to get you to surgery in the next few days, or you're going to die.'

 

"There was no time to think about the fact that I was devastated that I could never be a mother. I don't know what hit me worse – the devastation that I couldn't carry my own child or the devastation that I had Stage III cancer. To hear all that in a matter of five minutes — it was so hard."

 

The operation lasted several hours. Pollex's appendix, spleen, ovaries, fallopian tubes and part of her stomach were removed.

 

"They pretty much took everything that I didn't need to survive because the cancer was everywhere," Pollex said.

 

She was hospitalized for eight days and four weeks later began weekly chemotherapy treatments that will last into January.

 

For Pollex, the road ahead is tough and uncertain.

 

"But cancer has never met someone like Sherry," Truex said. "She's very determined and hard-working. She will be the person that can change the way this all works for other women — for increasing awareness and helping other people not get in this position. That will be something she can really make a difference with. She will make stuff happen."

 

http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nascar/2014/10/28/martin-truex-jr-girlfriend-sherry-pollex-fighting-ovarian-cancer-together/18061015/

 

Oh. And f*** cancer...

[KenJennings]

Jeez... that's tough. I'm surprised nobody gives this story any time of day. I had no idea it was going this badly.

[laughedatbytime]

Great news! Sherry Pollex announces she is cancer free...

 

http://www.sportingnews.com/nascar-news/4691327-martin-truex-jr-girlfriend-sherry-pollex-ovarian-cancer-free

[blueschica]

Great news! Sherry Pollex announces she is cancer free...

 

http://www.sportingnews.com/nascar-news/4691327-martin-truex-jr-girlfriend-sherry-pollex-ovarian-cancer-free

Thanks so much for posting this, and the link. That is wonderful news for both Sherry and Truex. I like how they are going to sit on the front porch and drink beer together!