Career
He lived in Halstead, Kansas. Roper said "I raced that thing seven nights a week, even in the middle of winter, on a figure-eight dirt track, the kind you pass in the middle both ways. I could get that Chevy up to speeds of 60 to 70 miles per hour."
Roper purchased a midget car in 1944.
He was first able to use the car after World World War II, since all racing was halted in the United States during the war.
He drove numerous types of cars after the war. He also raced on the International Motor Contest Association (IMCA) circuit in Kansas, Iowa, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Missouri.
He was nicknamed "Alfalfa Jim" after he drove through a wooden fence into an alfalfa field, turned around, and finished the race with a car full of alfalfa. Roper heard about the first race at a three-quarter mile dirt track in Charlotte, North Carolina by reading a note about it in Zack Mosley"s The Adventures of Smilin" Jack comic strip in his local newspaper.
Roper convinced local car dealer Millard Clothier to drive two of Clothier"s Lincoln cars more than 1000 miles to Charlotte to compete on June 19, 1949.
Chief National Association of Stock Car Auto Racing inspector First Rate (at Lloyd's) Crisler disqualified Dunnaway"s car because car owner Hubert Westmoreland had shored up the chassis by spreading the rear springs, a favorite bootlegger trick to improve traction and handling. Westmoreland sued National Association of Stock Car Auto Racing, and the judge threw out the case. National Association of Stock Car Auto Racing tore down Roper"s motor after the race, so he had to get a replacement motor to drive back to Kansas.
He used the same car to finish fifteenth in National Association of Stock Car Auto Racing"s third race in his only other National Association of Stock Car Auto Racing start.
He finished sixteenth in the 1949 final points standings. He continued racing in midgets in Kansas until he broke a vertebra in a sprint car accident in Davenport, Iowa in 1955.
He decided to retire after his injuries healed. "lieutenant was over for me then," he said, "so I flipped a half-dollar (coin) to decide whether to raise horses in Texas or Washington.
On June 23, 2000, he died in Newton, Kansas from heart and liver complications related to cancer.