NASCAR
Bob Pockrass, NASCAR 7y

Don't doubt Robert Yates' determination

NASCAR

KANNAPOLIS, N.C. -- Robert Yates was meticulous as an engine builder and pretty feisty as a car owner. If people bet against him, they did so at their own risk.

He is taking that same attitude as he battles liver cancer.

"It's tough," the 74-year-old Yates said Monday. "God created me. He'll fix me. If he needs me, He'll take me. I've got a lot to be thankful for. ... A lot of people beat it.

"There's new therapies working. In my case, it's been working real well. I plan to beat this, God willing."

Yates admits that trying to follow the advice that he needs a positive attitude is difficult, especially when doctors look at the same scans and see two different results.

A week ago, one of his doctors told him his cancer had grown 36 percent -- it initially had dropped, so it was an overall increase of more like 16 percent.

"I was [told I was] off the program and prepare my kids and leave for hospice in the next four weeks," Yates said.

Four hours later, he went from that doctor saying "you're done in four weeks" to another doctor saying that it was mainly inflammation, the treatment was working and continue with the program. So he takes his meds and gets out on his tractor when he can.

Even though he wasn't having the best of days, Yates seemed to cherish Monday, seeing the paint scheme Danica Patrick unveiled Monday at Stewart-Haas Racing. The scheme honors the 1999 Robert Yates Racing Ford driven by Dale Jarrett to the NASCAR Cup title.

Yates said his best days are the days he is active.

"Sitting in a chair promotes sitting in a chair," Yates said.

He thinks back to the time at Mars Hill College when a professor saw him working on a tractor the day before the final exam. Before passing out the exam, he told the class that Yates would fail because he didn't study.

"You bet against me?" Yates said about that time. "That's how I eat. I can't be here if I don't work. ... I had six sisters, straight A's, two brothers, straight A's. I don't think I ever broke a C.

"But the more the teachers would bet against me, the more I would show them."

He said he takes the same attitude here: Don't bet against him. He told his doctors never to talk to him about hospice. They can discuss it with his family, but not with him.

"When they tell you you've got to beat it by being positive and all this stuff and every time [the doctor] would come in and talk to me, he talked about hospice," Yates said.

"I said, 'Listen I remember well you told me 10 times about hospice. I give them a lot of money. I've raised money for them. I know exactly who they are and what they do. Don't talk to me about hospice any more. Carolyn [my wife] might need it, but I don't need it."

Yates said he told one of his doctors he was going to Germany to go buy a liver. He still has the fight left in him.

"It's easier to win the Daytona 500 than beat this stuff," Yates said. "One day I'm beating it, the next day I'm not beating it."

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