It was a frigid February day in Charlotte, North Carolina, in 2014, and Sam Bass was lying in bed watching live NASCAR television coverage from Daytona Beach, Florida. There was no way to know it just then, but his notable artistic career was as frozen as the ground outside the window. A new stock car season had dawned in Bass' darkest hour.

It was odd for Bass to be in the snow and the sheets rather than his customary sand and sun. For decades Daytona was his February home, the initial brushstroke each year for this life that imitated its art.

Bass lived a move-fast-or-get-passed philosophy. He never slowed down. Couldn't. Not by nature and not by necessity. He is an artist for hire, and therefore he is the development department, the production department, the shipping department and the oversight committee.

In that moment, outside that window, the weather was bad in North Carolina; snow fell heavy over the Queen City. Businesses and schools had closed. Staffing was thin. That included hospitals.

Bass has Type 1 diabetes and, until now, was neither diligent about, nor especially interested in, treatment. In 2008 he lost the lower portion of his left leg because of nonchalance about taking the shots his condition requires. He prefers the term "stupidity."

Now here he was again, six years later, back in the hospital, angry and disappointed just like the last time. But this round was different, and this battle was different. This time he was septic -- and nearly dead. He went back in the hospital last Wednesday to treat an infection but should get out this week, according to a news release.

"I tremendously appreciate the prayers and continued support of everyone during this extremely difficult time," Bass said in the release.

Before his latest bout, he said managing blood sugars is difficult enough, but the schedule he had to maintain, the traveling and the pressure, made it far more taxing. In 2013 the prosthetic he uses to walk rubbed an open sore on the back of his left leg, which became infected. Coupled with high blood sugars and erratic treatment, the infection became a serious problem.

"I almost died. Twice," Bass said with a deflective grin.

He had a series of operations. During the first one, he said he had a "low-blood-pressure incident" and nearly died. Two weeks later, following a second operation, that snowstorm hit Charlotte.

"They were half-staffed at the hospital," Bass explained. "Here I'd had this major operation, and I come through it fine. But a couple of the sutures popped open, and the nurse that would regularly check on you every 20 minutes, [instead came by] every hour.

"She came by my room, I had this huge pool of blood under me. Another 15 minutes I'd have just bled out and died, right there. It was quite an experience."

His kidney function was reduced to 10 percent. The infection had destroyed his system. As Bass began to heal, doctors informed him that one out of four people who have sepsis, severe blood poisoning, never leave the hospital.

When the iconic No. 3 returned to Sprint Cup competition in 2014 with Austin Dillon at the wheel, the paint scheme was designed by Sam Bass. Brian Lawdermilk/Getty Images

"It easily could have went the other way," he said.

Days after his second life-threatening episode, Bass watched as the announcers in Daytona Beach detailed one of the key storylines to open the 2014 season: the return of the No. 3 Chevrolet to the racetrack.

The iconic car hadn't graced a Sprint Cup racetrack in 13 years -- since Dale Earnhardt's final lap in 2001 -- and in the Daytona 500 it would return with great fanfare. Bass designed several of Earnhardt's special No. 3 paint schemes throughout the years, including those sponsored by Wheaties cereal and Oreo cookies. And he had designed how the car would look in its return, with driver Austin Dillon.

Stuffed amid the live Speedweeks coverage was a documentary-style taped program titled "Return of the 3." Bass was a prominent figure in the piece, grinning widely as he presented No. 3 team owner Richard Childress with a painting of the same title. The rendering depicted Dillon's new No. 3 on the frontstretch at Daytona, as Earnhardt's car "reflected" in the outside wall.

"I gave that to him [in January], and I went into the hospital the very next week," Bass said. "I was near death, watching myself on TV doing this presentation, smiling ear to ear."

For months he told no one. Then in May he went to Charlotte Motor Speedway, which is located directly across the street from his gallery. Charlotte in May is Bass' playground. It is his race. Beginning in 1985, he designed 78 consecutive event program covers for the track.

To this day, some of the most connected folks in the NASCAR garage have no knowledge he was sick at all, much less deathly. NASCAR is the consummate out-of-sight-out-of-mind arena.

"This sport, when you're in it you're so distracted you don't pay attention to people's lives," legendary crew chief Ray Evernham explained. "Then, when you're not in it, it hurts so bad not to be around it you don't pay attention then, either."

Bass' visit at Charlotte Motor Speedway in May 2014 lasted just 45 minutes. It was all he could muster physically and emotionally. He didn't attend another race until July, the Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. The entire experience lives as time-lapse footage in his mind, a blur.

"This sport [of NASCAR] has a way of moving right along with or without you," Bass said, echoing Evernham's thoughts. "Last year is like it never happened," he said quietly. "It doesn't seem real, yet it was very real."

According to the Mayo Clinic's website, "sepsis occurs when chemicals released into the bloodstream to fight the infection trigger inflammatory responses throughout the body. This inflammation can trigger a cascade of changes that can damage multiple organ systems, causing them to fail."

Sam Bass' painting to celebrate Dale Earnhardt's seventh championship in 1994. "I consider myself so lucky to have worked with him on so very many paintings and designs," Bass said. Courtesy Sam Bass

It can kill you.

It all started for Bass in October 2013. He felt physically terrible. He saw heart doctors and his primary care physicians, but no one could find anything wrong. He said he was so lethargic it was all he could muster just to get up and walk.

In early February, as the NASCAR circus prepared to head to the beach, he'd had enough. Bass drove to the emergency room, and four hours later he was in the operating room. During the next month he underwent four separate procedures, as doctors removed one-third of the skin tissue of his left leg in the effort to eradicate the infection.

Upon completion, a 5-inch-wide, 27-inch-long, 3-inch-deep swath of tissue was removed from his left leg.

It took 14 months to heal, and Bass could do nothing to expedite it. He tried to use it as a lesson in patience and diligence. He was anxious to hurry, but he focused on improving his health as a diabetic. He now takes three shots each day.

"There's a lot of rocket science in it, and you have to figure it out -- this is my blood sugar, how much insulin do I need to take, when do I eat?" he said. "All this stuff factors into controlling it."

Diabetes, he continued, "is gradual. All your arteries are very, very fine. You've got major arteries, and they appendage off into all these small, fractional ones. And your blood, basically, just stops flowing to all your different nerve endings. After a while, if you don't have the nerve endings and you lose the blood flow, they have to come off and be amputated. People lose toes and fingers.

"I've been a diabetic all my life, but didn't know it until I was almost 30 years old. So over [these] past 22 years, I've [done] the best I can, but I never let my diabetes interfere with my job. It was all about the work."

After the surgeries he lost 10 weeks of work and the compensation that came with it. He is depressed and embarrassed by the setback, and was ill prepared for its aftermath. He hides it well with his deflective smile. During recovery he missed paid appearances, networking opportunities and meetings. As a result, he said, business is down 75 percent in 2015.

"I've been doing this since 1981, and probably haven't missed 10 weeks of work, total, that whole time," he said. "So it was quite the wake-up call and readjustment of my whole operating system."

Since the early 1980s, Bass has been a NASCAR garage staple, well-known to fans all over the world for the thousands of renderings he's produced of their favorite drivers and cars.

"His drawings are very realistic -- he's into realism," said former Charlotte Motor Speedway president Humpy Wheeler, who first hired Bass to create art for the track's program covers in the 1980s. "Fifty years from now when they look back on racing art, particularly stock car racing art, he'll be not only known as a pioneer, but eventually may be the first artist in the Hall of Fame."

Original artwork by Sam Bass done for, and presented to, Dale Earnhardt Jr. as a 2014 Christmas present. It commemorates Earnhardt's 2014 Daytona 500 victory. Courtesy Sam Bass

Alongside the realistic paintings, Bass also personally designed some of the most famous stock car paint schemes ever, including Jeff Gordon's iconic rainbow No. 24, Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s Budweiser No. 8, and Bobby Allison's No. 12 Miller High Life Buick -- the car Allison drove to the 1988 Daytona 500 victory.

"He's just an awesome artist," Earnhardt Jr. said. "He's the artist for our sport, and I think that's where he's unique to the world, is how he's the go-to guy and the standard of excellence for art.

"I never have sat down and spent a lot of time talking to him, but I've never ran into that guy when he wasn't smiling so hard his eyes were squinting, as if he's having the best day ever."

Bass met Allison in 1981. He had followed NASCAR since he was 7 years old, and always enjoyed creating artwork related to the sport. His dream was to get paid for it. At the time he was 20 years old, living in Virginia and working for the government as a graphic artist.

One day during lunch with a colleague, he mentioned he'd created a painting of Allison and how he'd like to have it autographed. The friend happened to be driving to Talladega, Alabama, the following weekend for the NASCAR race, and invited Bass to tag along.

The drive took 15 hours. The experience redrew the boundaries of his life.

Back then, the Winston Cup Series competed at Talladega in the sweltering August heat. Bass stood outside the garage gate begging the security guard to let him in. Finally, after six hours of badgering, the guard relented. Bass walked directly to Allison's car, and driver and crew promptly autographed the painting.

While he was inside the garage, Bass met Darrell Waltrip's crew, as well as Terry Labonte's. They saw the painting and asked if he'd create one of their respective drivers.

"I left Talladega and drove back to Virginia and thought, 'Wow, if I could string enough of these $35 paintings together, maybe I can make it,'" Bass said with a laugh. "That's where the whole dream started. Allison was my hero growing up, so it was such a cool thing for me."

Sam Bass with the painting that started it all. "I took this to Talladega in 1981 to have it autographed by my hero, Bobby Allison," Bass said. Courtesy Sam Bass

Allison's High Life car was the first one Bass designed. In 1986, he met Hank Jones, a NASCAR garage marketing legend -- a true mythical figure of the sport -- who worked at the time on Allison's souvenir trailer. Bass coaxed Jones into letting him create a poster of Allison's car that could be sold to fans from the rig. Jones put Bass in front of Miller's marketing team, and they commissioned the poster of Allison and another Miller-sponsored driver, Bobby Hillin.

"That's before the tracks even let us come in the track!" Jones howled. "I'd go find a field as close as I could to the track and set up Bobby Allison's souvenir truck. Well here one day comes this shy little guy up to the trailer -- I was running it myself -- and he had this paperwork under his arm.

"He walks up, introduces himself and asks who was in charge. I told him I was. He said, 'I'm an artist -- at least I think I am -- and I think this is my future. I'd like to show you something.' Sure man. He pulled it out, and it was a great, great painting he'd done of Bobby. It was just awesome."

Jones is quick to note that he's no yes-man. He won't tell you something just to make you feel good. If he says it's awesome, he said, he believes it's awesome.

"I liked it -- and more than that I liked Sam and his demeanor," Jones continued. "As we're talking, he said I'd give anything to try to get this to Bobby Allison. I said, 'Come on, get in the truck.' We drove into the track and walked straight to Bobby. Bobby is so approachable, the greatest guy you'll ever be around.

"We went up in the transporter and Sam zipped open his folder, and Bobby was just in awe. People just weren't doing that back in those days. He had it in color. Bobby was overwhelmed."

Jones explained to Allison that Bass wanted to do a deal. He'd give Allison a percentage of every painting he sold off the souvenir truck.

"I knew we had something there," Jones said. "I'm so pleased I was right."

During that same time Bass noted to Jones that he'd like to design a race car. In 1987 Miller commissioned him to design how Allison's car would look for the 1988 season. When that happened, Allison called to request that Bass design his Busch Series Piper Aircraft car, too.

"The first two cars I ever designed won on Saturday and won on Sunday at Daytona," Bass said. "It was magic. It was absolutely magic. To be there, sitting in those grandstands, watching those cars race. I was ready to quit. How would I ever top this?"

When Jeff Gordon took to the track in his "Rainbow Warrior" phase, the No. 24 car's paint scheme was designed by Sam Bass. David Taylor/Allsport/Getty Images

Then the rainbow car came along.

"Sam made different kinds of contributions to further the sport," said Evernham, crew chief for Gordon's rainbow No. 24. "Certainly, he did it by documenting key moments and iconic paint schemes in people's careers, like Jeff's, through art, as well as moments like The Winston under the lights or all those amazing paint schemes for Dale Earnhardt.

"If you walk through his shop, it's a history of the past 30 years, when times were really good in NASCAR. That's just one side of his contribution, though. The other side is, Sam's been a behind-the-scenes friend to a lot of people over the years, someone to bounce ideas off of, a relationship you could talk to without him wanting something from you. He's helped a lot of people."

In 1992, DuPont wanted to sell automotive paints. Evernham asked Bass to mock up a few potential designs to be submitted in the pool of those supplied by other bidders. Forty-three different designs were considered.

Bass was driving to work the morning of the DuPont presentation, and the idea of selling a rainbow of paint colors popped into his head.

"It hit me that, if that DuPont logo was on the hood and I arched colors on top of it, it would form a rainbow," Bass said. "So I went to work, laid it out, and the minute I finished it, I knew. It was a natural."

Sure enough, DuPont chose Bass' rainbow of colors, and Gordon ran the design for the most dominant nine seasons of his career.

"It's iconic. It makes me so proud," Bass said. "The three most recognized cars in the history of NASCAR are the 3, the 43 and the number 24, and in my career I've been able to design for all three of those numbers."

His appreciation of Earnhardt's career was readily apparent in his work. The respect between the men was mutual and obvious.

"My dad had so much respect for Sam, and he'd spend so much time with him and they'd work together on projects," Earnhardt Jr. said. "I think I can say for certain Dad would go do things for, and with, Sam to help Sam, when there wasn't a big monetary payback for Dad.

"If you walk through his shop, it's a history of the past 30 years, when times were really good in NASCAR."

"He just really appreciated Sam and Sam's talent, and that he's just such a nice guy -- that endeared Dad to him," Earnhardt Jr. added. "I always measure people, I guess, by how Dad treated them, by how he dealt with them. That's the measure for me. Sam's one of those guys Dad would go the extra mile for."

Again, that approach was reciprocal.

"He sure helped put Earnhardt on the map," Wheeler said. "Whether he'll admit it or not, Earnhardt was his favorite subject. He always had that black car in a battle with somebody. It was never just riding down the track. It was always bumping somebody or something crazy.

"His interpretations on the racetrack were a great contribution. It was a different perception."

Bass estimates he's completed several thousand pieces of NASCAR-themed art -- not counting the endless rough drafts and designs that weren't selected for a particular project.

"I love my career. I love my job," Bass said. "And I wasn't prepared to have to stop."

These days Bass is back at the racetrack often, smiling that smile. It's deceptive, his grin. If you didn't know he went through the pain, it would be hard to tell. The absence hurt him physically and professionally.

But NASCAR has a habit of moving on. It has a habit of finding someone to take a man's place.

"Stock car racing is like a huge tractor trailer with a load of lead in it, going down the mountain at runaway speeds," Wheeler said. "Despite the problems, it's got huge, massive momentum. And it's going down that mountain whether we're there or not."

That was emotionally frustrating for Bass. He recalls lying in the hospital bed that cold, snowy February day when the doctor came in to tell him he'd make it to Daytona if he was lucky -- in July.

"That was the first major realization for me just how major this was," he said. "I was devastated. I laid there and thought about how I needed to take better care of myself as a diabetic.

"I had tremendous frustration with myself. I'm always pushing it. I'm always like, 'That can't happen to me.' I'm one of those guys that, no matter what I'm facing, I can storm through it. And a lot of that is just human nature.

"I'd always heard all these other stories -- and quite honestly when I lost my leg, it wasn't the diabetes that cost me my leg, it was stupidity. As hard as that is to admit, it's true. That all started with just a little tiny blister that, because I would never stop long enough to let it heal, it wound up turning into a major infection and cost me my leg -- and almost my life."