1920: Race driver Gaston Chevrolet dies in a track crash in a Los Angeles race. He's the first of three famous brothers to suffer a tragic end.
Gaston was the kid brother of Louis Chevrolet, co-founder of the Chevrolet Motor Car Company, later part of General Motors. Louis and the middle brother, Arthur, were born in the Swiss watchmaking center of La Chaux-de-Fonds, which was also the hometown of their contemporary, Machine Age architect Le Corbusier.
The Chevrolet family moved to France before Gaston was born. Louis was the first in the family to emigrate from France, moving to Canada in 1900 and the United States in 1901. Arthur and Gaston soon followed, both working for Arthur as mechanics and race drivers.
Arthur raced in the inaugural Indianapolis 500 in 1911, and again in 1916. He didn't finish either time.
Louis raced the Indy in 1915, 1916, 1919 and 1920. He finished seventh in 1919, but dropped out before halfway in the other three races.
The brothers Chevrolet founded a racing-car design company in 1916: the Frontenac Motor Corporation. It was initially successful, but after the First World War, their machines proved to be increasingly obsolete and the brothers lacked the financial resources to regain competitiveness.
The Monroe Motors Company's new management asked Louis Chevrolet to run the firm's racing team. The brothers packed up and moved their business to Indianapolis, and quickly made the new Monroe racers ready for the upcoming 1920 Indy 500.
Gaston Chevrolet's Frontenac had finished 10th (three places behind Louis) in the 1919 Indy. In the 1920 race, driving his adapted Monroe, he won the prestigious 500-miler with an average speed of 86.63 mph, a very impressive speed for the time.
As the racing season moved on to the West Coast, Gaston was entered in a race at the Beverly Hills Speedway board track in California. Board tracks were notoriously treacherous, and that proved especially so this day at lap 146 on the 1-mile track's east turn.
Chevrolet was trying to pass Joe Thomas, who was driving the inside, when his car struck Eddie O'Donnell's, driving the outside. O'Donnell's car fell down the ramp, and Chevrolet's went upward, tore out some fence and then fell back, right on top of the wreckage of O'Donnell's car.
The crash killed Chevrolet, O'Donnell and Lyall Jolls, O'Donnell's riding mechanic. Chevrolet's mechanic (or mechanician, in The New York Times language of the day), John Bresnahan, suffered serious injuries.
When the race ended some hundred miles later, it turned out that Gaston Chevrolet had won the national race-car–driving championship on the basis of points from previous wins that year.
Posthumous champion Gaston Chevrolet was 28 years old.
Older brother Louis died penniless at age 62 in 1941. Arthur committed suicide a week before his 62nd birthday in 1946. All three brothers are buried in the Holy Cross and Saint Joseph Cemetery in Indianapolis.
Source: Wikipedia, The New York Times
Photo: Louis (left) and Gaston Chevrolet, winner of the 1920 Indianapolis 500.
See Also:
- Feb. 18, 1898: Enzo Ferrari Gets the Green Flag
- Jan. 28, 1938: The Passing of the Silver Comet
- Feb. 25, 1919: Oregon Taxes Gas by the Gallon
- June 30, 1953: Corvette Adds Some Fiber, Flair to American Road
- 1.5 Millionth Corvette Rolls Out
- Chevrolet Volt Charges On Despite Bankruptcy
- Nov. 25, 1816: Theater Lighting
- Sept. 29, 1920: Radio Goes Commercial
