TMZ reports former NASCAR driver Dick Trickle is dead ... apparently having taken his own life with a self-inflicted gunshot wound.  He was 71 years old.

Cops in North Carolina say Trickle shot himself at Forest Lawn Cemetery in Lincoln County at 12:02 PM today. Law enforcement sources tell TMZ ... Trickle did leave a suicide note at the death scene. The contents of the note are unclear at this time.

Officials say they received a phone call before the shooting in which the caller said there would be a dead body at the cemetery and it would be his.

Multiple sources who knew Trickle tell us he had been sick for a while and depressed.  We're not sure what kind of illness Trickle had been suffering from.

Full story here

Official police press release on Dick Trickle's death

Lincolnton, NC - Retired race car driver Richard "Dick" Trickle, 71, died today from an apparent self inflicted gun shot wound.

The incident occurred at 12:02 p.m. at Forest Lawn Cemetery on Highway 150 East in Boger City.

The Lincoln County Communications Center received a call apparently from the victim that "there would be a dead body and it would be his ". Communications Center workers tried to place a return call to the number but did not get an answer.

The first emergency units arriving on the scene located the body lying near the victim's pickup truck.

Trickle was a Lincoln County resident and had lived here since the early 1990's

Classic shot of Trickle smoking during a race :)