04/12/2001

In the scheme of his newest profession, stock car racing, though certainly not to his 10-year-old daughter, Michael Roberts was just a guy.

As a result, we didn't hear much about the last spin the 50-year-old rookie took. It was a practice run just a few weeks ago around the Lebanon I-44 Speedway, a short track in central Missouri.

The tires on Roberts' NASCAR Touring Series car started to smoke. The car went into a slide. It smashed into a concrete wall.

The first people on the scene discovered Roberts unconscious. They said blood was pouring from his nose, ears and mouth.

Not long afterward, Roberts was pronounced dead. The official cause of death was basilar skull fracture, the same injury that killed Dale Earnhardt in February at Daytona and three other NASCAR drivers in the past year. A fifth, Tony Roper, died from some sort of sudden head movement injury in a wreck at Texas Motor Speedway, but no autopsy was performed to determine the exact cause of death.

Like Earnhardt, Roper and the others, Roberts was not wearing the head-and-neck device that may have prevented his death. And he was racing just 80 mph, or roughly 100 mph slower than was Earnhardt on Earnhardt's final lap.

Whether NASCAR officials should have ordered drivers in all their classes to don head-and-neck devices in the wake of Adam Petty's death last May, Earnhardt's in February, those in between or Roberts' last month is open to debate. My two cents: They should have.

But there is no question that NASCAR officials have been too deliberate and secretive in responding to tragedy.

To be sure, it was just on Monday that NASCAR announced the commissioning of what it called an accident construction review panel to investigate the cause of Earnhardt's death. It was an announcement that should have come the Monday after Earnhardt was pronounced dead, but all NASCAR said then was that it would look into the tragedy in due time and on its own, as always.

The announcement was not only overdue, but came off as suspicious. For it was made just before The Orlando Sentinel published the findings of an independent medical examiner it hired to determine the cause of Earnhardt's death. Dr. Barry Myers concluded Earnhardt was killed by a violent whiplash rather than, as NASCAR officials suggested weeks ago, his chin hitting the steering wheel because of a broken seatbelt.

The timing of the NASCAR announcement also made cynics like me wonder if the good ol' boys weren't just suddenly concerned about being hit with a wrongful death suit, or a libel suit from the seatbelt manufacturer they maligned. After all, there is a growing legion these days within their ranks that is echoing the charge of outsiders that the billion-dollar sport isn't doing all it can to insure the safety of its entertainers.

Just Wednesday, for example, during a teleconference, Speedway Motorsports president Humpy Wheeler said he believed that NASCAR fatalities could be eliminated if all the available technology, like head-and-neck devices, were implemented. He then made a little announcement of his own: Speedway Motorsports would form a medical emergency team of its own for its tracks. NASCAR generally has hired local emergency units for its races.

Over the years, NASCAR, obviously, has done things to better protect its participants. It is no accident, although it is because of accidents, that tracks, cars and gear are safer nowadays.

But the time arrived a while ago when NASCAR could no longer be so insular and accountable only to itself. It still may be family-owned, but it is no longer a mom-and-pop business answerable only to itself.

It recently garnered a $2-billion TV package and a weekend audience surpassed by only the NFL. It has turned into as much of a public concern in the new millennium as baseball and boxing. Its public deserves the right to independent investigations, and NASCAR will be better for it.

It's just too bad it took the death of a legend, and inquiries about it from the media, for the sport finally to start getting up to speed and out of the garage.

Kevin B. Blackistone can be reached at 214-977-8780 or at