As Richard Petty Becomes Duke Fan, His Wife Talks About Her Cancer

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- The Duke Blue Devils -- nowhere more loved or reviled than here in their home state -- gained a big new fan this year in North Carolina's own Richard Petty, but not for any athletic accomplishments.

Since early February, Petty and his wife, Lynda, have been traveling back and forth from their home in Level Cross to the Duke University Medical Center in Durham, where Lynda has been receiving chemotherapy treatments for a brain tumor at the Preston Robert Tisch Brain Tumor Center.

"If I was never a Duke fan before, I'm a Duke fan now," Petty said at the NASCAR Hall of Fame Tuesday when asked about how his wife was doing. "Not that I wasn't, but it's brought me that much closer to Duke, that's for sure."

Meanwhile, Lynda Petty spoke out for the first time, telling WGHP Fox 8 News in an interview aired Thursday night, "I thought, 'Lord, give me the strength to get through this,' because I knew it was going to be the battle of my life."

Lynda told reporter Bob Buckley of the High Point, N.C., station that she first began having problems while the family was on vacation at their Wyoming ranch home.

"It was the first of December when we were out West," she said. "Then all at once it just hit me. I told Richard, 'I don't know what's happening to me, but something is going on.' I told Richard, I said, 'I've got to get home. I don't want to die up here. You've got to get me home.'"

She said after receiving the diagnosis of a Central Nervous System lymphoma, her days of chemotherapy at Duke "were long and dark and I thought, 'Will I ever be normal again?'"

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For more information on lymphoma visit Aol Health. Read More On April 19, the Petty Family Foundation reported on its Facebook page that Lynda's tumor was "completely gone," but added a few days later that she still had a tough fight ahead -- six more months of chemotherapy.

"She just has to get over the chemotherapy," Richard said. "And about the time she gets over it and starts to feelin' good again, she has to go back in for another round."

Even though the tumor is gone, "I'm still scared to death of cancer," Lynda said in the television interview. "I dream of it at night. I dream of going to the doctor and him looking in my eyes and saying, 'You've got lymphoma.'"

She said her faith in God "got me through this" and thanked her countless well-wishers for their prayers. "And I know that God heard them all because I know he saved me to be here on earth," she said. "That's a wonderful thing about God. He forgives the things we don't do right and lets us have a second chance. And I think he has certainly given me another chance to make everything really right in my life."

The Pettys celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary last year. In 1959, at age 17, while still a senior in high school, Lynda married Richard after they eloped to South Carolina. He had started his NASCAR career the year before. The Pettys have four children: Kyle, Sharon Petty Farlow, Lisa Petty Luck and Rebecca Petty Moffit. They have 12 grandchildren.