Motorcyclist in fatal crash was Wyoming university professor

The motorcyclist who died this week after a crash near Valley of Fire State Park was a 52-year-old assistant professor at the University of Wyoming.

Heavy rain and hail contributed to the crash that killed Gustavo Marcelo Sbatella of Powell, Wyoming, on Wednesday as he headed south on Interstate 15 near mile marker 81, the Nevada Highway Patrol said.

Sbatella was riding a red Yamaha Star when he hit the brakes and entered a rocky median, the Highway Patrol said Thursday. He was thrown from the motorcycle when it overturned and died at the scene.

He had been traveling from Wyoming on his motorcycle to an academic conference in California, his son, Alex Sbatella, said.

“I told him to take a plane and he said, ‘What is life without a little adventure?’”

University of Wyoming spokesman Chad Baldwin said Sbatella was an assistant professor of irrigated crop and weed management at the Powell Research and Extension Center.

He worked in the Big Horn Basin, an agricultural hub that grows pinto beans, corn, sugar beets and hay.

“It’ll be a big loss,” Baldwin said. “It’s hard to fill his shoes.”

Alex Sbatella described his father as a free-spirited, supportive man dedicated to his children and his research.

“He was allergic to pollen, but that never stopped him. He loved what he did.”

Sbatella’s last post to Instagram was a photo of Utah with the caption, “time to go,” his son noted.

“He was a very happy person all the time,” he said. “He was there to help me at all times. In the ups and downs of life, he was there for me.”