INDIANAPOLIS — Longtime racing announcer Bob Jenkins mentioned he plans to cut back his work at Indianapolis Motor Speedway this Could as he undergoes radiation and chemotherapy therapy for mind most cancers.

The 73-year-old Jenkins made the announcement Tuesday close to the top of a 24-minute video posted on the speedway’s YouTube account.

In it, Jenkins defined how he awakened with a extreme headache on Christmas night time and drove to a hospital. Docs initially thought Jenkins had suffered a stroke, however an additional examination revealed two malignant tumors in his proper temple.

“I had colon most cancers in 1983 and I survived that,” he advised Speedway president Doug Boles in the course of the interview. “And with God’s assist and my beloved race followers, I am gonna make it.”

He retired from broadcasting on the finish of the 2012 IndyCar season to look after his spouse, Pam, who had been recognized with mind most cancers. He returned to the tv sales space briefly in 2013 after she died, and he has most lately labored as one of many speedway’s main public handle announcers.

Jenkins joined the IMS Radio Community in 1979 and rapidly grew to become widespread along with his booming, baritone voice and easygoing type.

He additionally known as IndyCar, NASCAR and Formulation One races for different networks together with ABC, ESPN, NBC Sports activities Community and its predecessor Versus. Jenkins anchored “NASCAR on ESPN” from 1979 to 2000, appeared in “Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby” and supplied the voice for a number of video video games together with EA Sports activities’ widespread “NASCAR.”

However he could also be greatest recognized round Indianapolis because the radio voice of the five hundred from 1990-98, a tenure that included his name of Al Unser Jr.’s first 500 victory in 1992 when he barely beat Scott Goodyear.

“The checkered flag is out, Goodyear makes a transfer, Little Al wins by only a few tenths of a second – maybe the closest end within the historical past of the Indianapolis 500,” Jenkins declared. The victory margin — 0.043 seconds — stays the closest end within the race’s 104-year historical past.

Jenkins grew up in rural Indiana and attended his first Indianapolis 500 in 1960. Since then, he mentioned he has solely missed two races – 1961, when he could not get anybody to take him, and 1965, when he was on a senior journey.