Stock Car Race Rookie Dies in Highway Crash

Stock car driver Robert James Moroso, a leading candidate for Winston Cup Rookie of the Year honors, died in a wreck on a state highway Sunday, just hours after finishing 21st in a NASCAR Winston Cup race.

Moroso, 22, of Terrell, N.C., was the 1989 Busch Grand National champion.

Moroso had driven the No. 20 Oldsmobile in Sunday’s Holly Farms 400 in North Wilkesboro, N.C., and was driving an Olds Cutlass on Sunday night.

“He was going west on N.C. 150, started into a curve, lost control and slid sideways,” Trooper Roger Smith said. Another car eastbound on the highway struck his car at the driver’s door.

Tammy Williams, 27, of China Grove, N.C., the driver of the other car, was also killed, Smith said.

The accident happened around midnight just west of Mooresville.

“Apparently he was traveling at a high rate of speed,” Smith said. “He lost control and went sideways and evidently he couldn’t correct it.”

Debbie Smith of Matthews, Moroso’s 26-year-old girlfriend, was injured in the accident. She was being treated at Carolinas Regional Medical Center.

Moroso, who drove for his father, Dick, won his first professional race before he was old enough to drink the sponsor’s beer. He won his first series championship before he had become a household word anywhere but his hometown of Madison, Conn.