Obituary
Inspirational Illinois racer loses long cancer battle
By Todd Turner
DirtonDirt.com managing editor
Hershel Roberts
Hershel Roberts, the inspirational Illinois driver whose winning attitude in the face of cancer was matched by his winning IMCA Late Model, died early Tuesday morning at a Quad Cities hospital. He was 68.
After being diagnosed with terminal cancer in 2006, the East Moline racer refused to slow down on the racetrack, continuing to win in his popular red No. 58 MasterSbilt Race Car into the 2009 season before poor health forced him to give up his seat to standout driver Ray Guss Jr. | Ceremonial parade lap planned after funeral
With Roberts and his son Ken fielding the car, Guss continued the team's winning ways, dominating IMCA action in 2010 with a championship in weekly competition as well as a title on IMCA's Deery Brother's Summer Series.
"Hershel was not only a wonderful ambassador for IMCA racing but a true gentleman in our sport and his passing has brought us great sadness," said the sanctioning body's marketing director Kevin Yoder. "His perseverance and courage through his battle with cancer epitomized the competitor he was during his racing career.
"He had the heart of a champion, and that was never more evident than during the last few years of his life as he exceeded all expectations on the track as a car owner and off the track as a cancer survivor. I am personally very humbled to have known him for the time I did and he will be missed."
"(Roberts) kept right on going, no matter what they told him. He kept right on fighting," said Guss, who won five races apiece on the Deery Brothers tour each of the past two seasons, and three track championship in 2010 alone. "The doctors, they were just sitting back and can't believe it. They were like, 'This man must be awful strong.' Most people were gone way before him. ... He was amazing, there's no doubt.
"I hated the fact (that Roberts's cancer was) how I got into the car, but he wanted me in it, and his son Kenny wanted me in it, and I told (Kenny) today I wanted to thank him for the opportunity to meet Hershel Roberts. I was just blessed to be able to do that by those guys picking me to drive for them, and the success we had topped things off."
Long-time racing announcer and publicist Phil Roberts, who wasn't related to Hershel but knew him for more than 30 years, called the late driver "one of the most inspirational people I've ever known."
"He was a class act, both as a driver-owner and as a human being. We weren't related — just good friends. But I often told him I'd have been proud to have been related to him," Phil Roberts said. "Hershel was a tough competitor but also a true gentleman both on and off the track. When he learned in early 2006 that he had only six months to two years to live, he told me he had put his illness out of the way because he wanted to go on with life. And he certainly did — for more than five years."
Born on April 6, 1943, in Guin, Ala., Roberts was in the Quad Cities area when he began a 42-year career at John Deere Harvester, which included 17 years at UAW service representative.
His racing career of more than 40 years began in 1968 when he bought a car from Benny Hofer, using shoe polish to paint No. 66 on the door to compete in sportsman and figure-8 races. After competing for years in several divisions, Hershel and son Ken stepped up their Late Model program in 2004, the same year Roberts was initially diagnosed with colon cancer.
Surgeons removed 17 inches of colon and gave Roberts the all-clear a year later, but when cancer returned in the inner lining of his stomach wall in February 2006, doctors declared it inoperable and told Roberts he had six months to live.
But Roberts, undergoing debilitating chemotherapy treatments that could slow, but not eradicate, the cancer, was determined to get the most out of life — and his racing team — as long as he could.
"They told me to get everything in order and get your will made," Roberts said in a 2008 interview. "Why sit around and worry about it? I'm going to try and live the best life I can. ... and do the stuff I want to do while I'm still alive."
One doctor told Roberts he was "the healthiest sick man I've ever seen in my life," and recommended him to keep doing whatever he was doing. And for Roberts, that was climbing behind the wheel of his race car instead of laying his cancer-racked body on a deathbed.
"That racing, that's what's kept him going," Hershel's wife Betty said in a 2008 story. "Hershel and I talked, but I feel like if he wants to be racing, he should be racing. Racing is Hershel. That is part of him. And as long as he can race, I want him to race."
Roberts continued to race and win into the 2009 season, but his failing health finally forced him out of the car, primarily because he didn't want to be a liability to other competitors. "He was always concerned about everybody else, all the way to the end," Guss said.
Interviewed before his 41st year of driving a race car, Roberts said he'd never set a retirement age.
"I'm surprised that I've been able to go out and be as competitive as I am," he said. "When I get to the point where I'm not competitive, and I don't have the drive to win, then it's time to hang it up and quit. I've had a few bad days, to be honest with you. ... But nothing that's going to keep me from racing."
Even after handing the reins to Guss less than two years ago, Roberts was determined to keep putting the No. 58 car into victory lane.
"The biggest thing you learned from Hershel, he wasn't looking for no sympathy from nobody," said Guss, who just 72 hours before his death presented Roberts with a trophy from the team's Friday night victory at Lee County Speedway in Donnellson, Iowa. "He was just living every doing for what it was and doing what he wanted to do. Evidently that's how everybody should look at life. ... you've gotta live every minute of every day and be happy with what you're doing.
"He just hated it when we'd get rained out of canceled. He was living life to the fullest, doing what he was doing, and drove that race car for as long as he thought he was healthy enough to do it."
At the conclusion of the team's impressive 2010 season with Guss behind the wheel, Roberts made what turned out to be his final career start as a driver at his hometown track, Quad City Speedway. He won a consolation race to qualify for that October night's 100-lap feature and persevered to complete the long-distance event at the quarter-mile oval.
"I'll be darned if he didn't stay out there and complete it," Guss said. "That shows you right there he was doing what he wanted to do and fulfilling his dream."
Overall, Roberts had 300 victories in his driving career and won 14 track championships, including five Late Model crowns.
Besides his wife Betty and son Ken, Roberts is survived by two other children and six grandchildren.
Services are 10 a.m. Friday at Calvary Church of the Quad Cities in Moline. Burial is in Greenview Memorial Gardens in East Moline. Visitation is 2-7 p.m. Thursday at the church. In lieu of flowers and statuary, a memorial fund has been established for a charitable gift in Hershel’s name. Van Hoe Funeral Home is handling arrangements.
