| | Associated Press
FAIR GROVE, Mo. -- NASCAR trucks racer Tony Roper was remembered Wednesday as a hometown hero who made good on his dreams by following in his father's tread marks.
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A memorial service for Roper, 35, was held at his former high school in the rural Missouri town where he grew up and got his first driving lessons through the winding Ozarks hills.
He died Saturday from a severe neck injury, hours after a fiery
crash in a NASCAR truck series race at Texas Motor Speedway in Fort
Worth.
"Tony was a man who never forgot where he came from; his heart
was always in the Ozarks," said the Rev. Don Powell, who conducted
the service held in the Fair Grove High School gymnasium.
Friends said that racing was in Roper's heart long before he
could drive -- or walk. His father was a former Midwest short-track
star, and Roper grew up on the pit roads of the nation's race tracks.
"He was going to races and sitting in his daddy's pit while he
was still in diapers," said his uncle, Dale Roper, who also raced
in the Midwest circuit. "Racing for him was a foregone
conclusion."
Powell said he thought the racing bloodline in Roper's family
went back to his grandmother, who would race her own car around the
streets of Fair Grove, where she sold Avon products.
"One day while I was walking around town I heard an engine revving and tires screeching down the road. I thought it was some teen-agers, but it was his grandmother," Powell said. "I thought to myself, 'Tony must have gotten some of his skill from his grandma."'
While other boys his age talked about football and baseball,
Roper would talk racing to whomever would listen. When other school
children got off the bus to go home, Roper would stay and tell the
driver about his dad's most recent race, Powell said.
Roper started racing go-carts after high school and worked in
his uncle's car shop for many years. He entered his first stock-car
race when he was 20.
He began racing late model cars in 1986, then moved to the ASA stock-car circuit in 1992. He made his first start in the truck series during its debut season in 1995.
He was in just his fifth Craftsman Series race this season, but the 60th of his career. He also had raced in the Busch series over the past two years.
His family had never imagined a crash Roper couldn't walk away from.
"You never think, 'That could happen to us,"' said his aunt,
Jana Setzer. "You just think, 'He's OK. He's got that helmet on.
He's going to be safe."'
The crash happened in Roper's 32nd lap Friday as he tried to
move through a pack of traffic. He apparently bumped with another
truck, then veered sharply to the right and slammed head-on into
the wall along the front stretch. His mangled truck burst into
flames and spun out of control.
Doctors said Roper's severe neck injury prevented blood from
flowing to his brain. He died 12 hours later at Parkland Hospital
with his family by his side.
Survivors include his wife, Michele Roper of Concord, N.C., and his parents, Shirley Medley and Dean Roper.
At the funeral, an altar in front of his casket was covered with black and white checkered flags and was adorned by a flower wreath in the shape of 26 -- his racing number.
He was buried Wednesday afternoon in Mount Comfort Cemetery in
Springfield.
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