DIED. Peter Gregg, 40, U.S. driver who had dominated sports-car racing since 1971; of a self-inflicted gunshot wound; in St. Johns County, Fla. Gregg, who drove modified Porsches to victory in 47 races and six annual championships of the International Motor Sports Association, once said: "Winning is no longer that important. I just don't want these other guys to win."

DIED. Elston Howard, 51, versatile slugger who was one of the pioneering blacks in baseball's major leagues; of cardiac arrest; in New York City. In 1955, eight years after Jackie Robinson breached the game's color barrier by joining the Brooklyn Dodgers, Howard became the first black to play with the New York Yankees. After 13 seasons with the Yanks and one with the Boston Red Sox, he returned to Yankee Stadium as the American League's first black coach.

DIED. Alexei Kosygin, 76, longtime Soviet Premier who with Leonid Brezhnev and Nikolai Podgorny formed the "troika" that wrested power from Nikita Khrushchev in 1964; of a heart attack; in Moscow (see WORLD).

DIED. Richard G. Drew, 81, Minnesota-born inventor who in 1930, as a laboratory assistant for what is now the 3M Co., combined a glue and glycerin stickum with a strip of transparent cellophane to form Scotch tape; in Santa Barbara, Calif.

DIED. Harland Sanders, 90, the goateed "colonel" who founded the Kentucky Fried Chicken fast-food chain, which now has 6,000 outlets in 48 countries; of pneumonia; in Louisville. Sanders ran a popular restaurant in rural Corbin, Ky., for 27 years before setting out in 1956 in his trademark white suits and black string ties to sell franchised eateries serving chicken parts laced with a secret blend of herbs and spices and pressure-cooked for 12 min. In 1964 he sold the business for $2 million to Nashville Businessmen Jack Massey and John Y. Brown Jr., now Kentucky's Democratic Governor; seven years later they peddled the chain to Heublein Inc. for an estimated $287 million in stock. Sanders, who stayed on at KFC Corp. as a $125,000-a-year consultant, never lost his sizzle. On occasion he would tour a KFC franchise and, if dissatisfied, tell newsmen that, say, the mashed potatoes tasted like "wallpaper paste."

DIED. Ben Travers, 94, British playwright whose comedies about rational people struggling with outrageous circumstances tickled audiences for five decades; in London. Travers kept the laughs coming right up to 1976, when at 89 he staged The Bed Before Yesterday, a hit sex farce starring Joan Plowright.

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