Driver's Death Is No Small Loss

FORT ATKINSON, Wis. — The latest NASCAR driver to die of a basilar skull fracture was eulogized Friday with about 60 people present.

He was no Dale Earnhardt. Just an obscure rookie driver who died the same way as the NASCAR legend.

Michael Roberts was a 50-year-old single parent who left behind a heartbroken daughter, Taylor--two years younger than Earnhardt's 12-year-old daughter, Taylor.

Roberts died March 24 at I-44 Speedway near Lebanon, Mo. He was driving 80 mph on the short track--100 mph slower than Earnhardt was when he hit a concrete wall on the last lap of the Daytona 500 on Feb. 18.

Roberts was the fifth NASCAR driver in 11 months to die of injuries caused by violent head movement and the fourth to die of basilar skull fracture. But he was different. He was one of the little guys, the weekend racers on America's grass-roots tracks. Thousands of them, like Roberts, hold NASCAR-issued licenses and drive at NASCAR-member tracks.

His death is the latest to trigger questions about the safety of cars built to NASCAR specifications. NASCAR officials did not return repeated phone calls last week about Roberts' death and the construction of NASCAR cars.

Another Crash

Upon arriving at Roberts' crash scene, "My first thought was, 'These goddamned NASCAR cars,' " said Michael Loescher, a nationally renowned driving instructor who was coaching Roberts that day and was among the first to get to the wreck. "They're too rigid, and they don't have enough crush zone in them."

Drivers Loescher coached early in their careers include Jeff Gordon, now the biggest living NASCAR star, and Adam Petty--the first in the current string of basilar skull fracture fatalities. Petty died last May 12.

Loescher, 54, has been a driver and car builder since he was 16, and he was a dominant driver in NASCAR's modified-car series in the northeastern United States during an outbreak of fatalities on that circuit in the mid-1980s. NASCAR rectified that situation with less-rigid front portions of the chassis.

Loescher has seen it all in racing, and what he saw when he rushed up to Roberts' car on March 24 was "the worst thing I've ever seen," he said, sobbing.

The symptoms were classic for basilar skull fracture. "Blood pouring out of his nose, his mouth, his ears," Loescher said. "Not just running out, pouring out--just like you were pouring it out of a five-gallon pail. . . .