Driver Roper Suffers Fatal Neck Injury

NASCAR Craftsman Trucks series driver Tony Roper died Saturday, hours after a fiery crash in a race Friday night at Texas Motor Speedway in Fort Worth.

The 35-year-old driver had a severe neck injury that prevented blood from flowing to his brain, said Dr. John LaNoue, a trauma surgeon at Parkland Hospital. LaNoue said the injury Friday night left Roper without any brain function.

It is the third on-track fatality this year in NASCAR. Busch series driver Adam Petty and Winston Cup competitor Kenny Irwin were killed eight weeks apart in crashes while practicing at New Hampshire International Speedway.

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Drag racer Wayne Bailey, 47, died of injuries from a crash during qualifying Friday night for the IHRA World Finals at Red River Raceway in Gilliam, La.

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Scott Goodyear, one of three drivers still in contention for the Indy Racing League season title, will start on the front row in today’s season-ending Excite 500 at Fort Worth.

Goodyear had the second-best qualifying time at Texas Motor Speedway, with a lap of 214.391 mph. He starts in the front row alongside Greg Ray, the defending IRL season champ who earned the pole at 215.352.

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Charlie Venegas of San Bernardino finished last in his first heat, but he didn’t lose another heat race, semifinal or main event, winning the Coors Light U.S. National Speedway Championship at the Orange County Fairgrounds.

Venegas outlasted Josh Larsen of Monrovia and third-place Chris Manchester of Upland. Dukie Ermolenko of Cypress took fourth, and Costa Mesa’s Bobby Schwartz was fifth in the four-lap main event.

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Rinaldo Capello of Italy set a Laguna Seca Raceway qualifying record in winning the pole position for today’s American Le Mans Series GlobalCenter Sports Car Championships endurance race at Monterey. . . . David Keith earned his second Automobile Racing Club of America stock car victory of the season by winning the Winn-Dixie 300 at Talladega.

Baseball

Carlos Tosca, an Arizona Diamondback coach, is scheduled to interview this week for the Dodger managerial position.

Tosca has served three seasons as the Diamondback bench coach. He is also a candidate to succeed former Diamondback manager Buck Showalter, who was fired the day after the regular season ended.

Tennis

Martina Hingis and Lindsay Davenport won their semifinal matches in straight sets to set up a meeting of the world’s top two players in today’s final of the Swisscom Challenge at Zurich, Switzerland.

No. 1-ranked Hingis, trying to win a singles title for the first time in her home country, defeated Jennifer Capriati, 6-3, 6-2. Davenport, making a comeback from a foot injury, routed Barbara Schett of Austria, 6-2, 6-1, leaving her in position to win her third title in Zurich.

Germany’s Tommy Haas defeated France’s Cedric Pioline, 6-7 (5-7), 6-2, 6-2, to advance to the finals of the CA Trophy tournament at Vienna. Tim Henman of Britain defeated Switzerland’s Roger Federer, 2-6, 7-6 (4), 6-3 in the other semifinal. . . . Nicolas Lapentti of Ecuador defeated Dominik Hrbaty of Slovakia, 6-3, 6-4, in the semifinals of the Japan Open in Tokyo. Lapentti will play Sjeng Schalken of the Netherlands, who beat Hicham Arazi of Morocco, 6-3, 6-4.

Soccer

A massive fight broke out only minutes after the start of a Yugoslav league match at Belgrade between Red Star and Partizan, leaving dozens injured.

The brawl followed a political uprising last week when the pro-democracy protesters forced former Yugoslavia president, Slobodan Milosevic, to acknowledge an election defeat and make way for the new president, Vojislav Kostunica.

Partizan fans had said before the match that they intended to disrupt the game to highlight their demand that the head of Partizan Sports Assn., Mirko Marjanovic--also Serbia’s prime minister and a Milosevic ally--step down.

Japan, the only team to take the Asian Cup away from Saudi Arabia in the last 16 years, proved it could do it again when it routed the defending champion, 4-1, in a group match at Sidon, Lebanon. Saudi Arabia suffered only its third and worst defeat since it won the Asian Cup the first time it entered the competition in 1984.

Miscellany

The cause of a high school football player’s death remained undetermined after he appeared to be injured while making a tackle Friday night in a game at Bedford, Ohio. Marcus Steele, a sophomore at Cleveland Central Catholic, apparently broke his neck while making a tackle in the game against Garfield Heights Trinity and died as a result, the school’s principal, Janice Roccosalva, said a few hours afterward.

Zinaida Stahurskaia of Belarus gave the country its first world cycling title in winning the elite women’s road race at the World Cycling Championships in Plouay, France.