'You have to man up': Bobby Hamilton Jr.'s move to his dad's No. 18 truck is a way one racing family copes with cancer.(NASCAR)

It's not often that someone can help out his hero. But that's what Bobby Hamilton Jr. is getting to do for his father, who announced in March he was temporarily stepping out of his No. 18 truck in the Craftsman Truck Series because he has cancer in his neck. Hamilton Jr., who had been driving the No. 08 truck for Bobby Hamilton Racing, slid over to the 18.

It wasn't an easy decision for the younger Hamilton, who was not looking forward to being compared to his dad, the 2004 truck series champion. But he also knew he didn't want anyone else driving his dad's truck.

He remembers when he first heard of his father's illness. "I kind of knew something was up because when he called the first time, just the way he was talking about it, it was kind of like, 'Hmm.' He wanted to talk to me; he wanted me to come down to the hospital. When I got there, I didn't know it was cancer. Nobody knew about it until that day. He just held it until then. Of course, the first thing you ...