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Roberts was born in Tavares, Florida, and raised in Apopka where he was interested in both auto racing and baseball. He was a pitcher for the Zellwood Mud Hens, an American Legion baseball team, where he earned the nickname "Fireball" because of his pitches. He enlisted with the Army Air Corps in 1945, but was discharged after basic training because of asthma.

He spent some time at the University of Florida but raced on dirt tracks on weekends. In 1947, at the age of 18, he raced on the beach course at Daytona for the first time. He won a 150-mile race at Daytona Beach the following year.

Roberts continued to amass victories on the circuit, despite the changes in NASCAR as it moved away from shorter dirt tracks to superspeedways in the 1950s and '60s. In his 206 career NASCAR Grand National races, he won 33 times and had 32 poles. He finished in the top five 45 percent of the time.

On May 24, 1964, at the World 600 in Charlotte, Roberts had qualified in the 11th position and started in the middle of the pack. On lap 7, Ned Jarrett and Junior Johnson collided and spun out and Roberts crashed trying to avoid them. Roberts' Ford slammed backward into the inside retaining wall, flipped over and burst into flames. Witnesses at the track claimed they heard Roberts screaming, "Ned, help me!" from inside his car after the wreck. Jarrett rushed to save Roberts as his car was engulfed by the flames. Roberts suffered second- and third-degree burns over 80 percent of his body and was airlifted to a hospital in critical condition. Roberts was known to have an allergic reaction to flame-retardant chemicals and could not dip his clothing in chemicals then used for drivers to wear.

Roberts was able to survive for several weeks, and it appeared he might pull through, but on June 30 of that year, Roberts took a turn for the worse. He contracted pneumonia and sepsis and slipped into a coma by the next day. He died on July 2.

Roberts' death, as well as the deaths of two drivers at the Indianapolis 500 the same year, led to an increase in research for fire-retardant uniforms. It also led to the development of the Firestone RaceSafe fuel cell, and all race cars today use a foam-backed fuel cell to prevent severe fuel spillage of the massive degree that Roberts had. Also, fully fire-retardant coveralls would be phased in leading to the now mandatory Nomex racing suits.

Fireball Roberts - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia