1920 National Champion and Death
Following his May 31, 1920 victory at Indianapolis, Gaston raced in several more events. He won a 100-mile (160 km) match race against top racers Tommy Milton (ironically, driving a Chevrolet race car) and Ralph Mulford.
With the coming of winter in late 1920, racing moved to the West Coast. While competing in the last race of the season on the board track at the Beverly Hills Speedway, Gaston was killed when his Frontenac crashed on lap 146 of the 200 lap race. Despite the crash, Gaston had accumulated enough points during the race and through the season to win the 1920 title of "Speed King of the Year" (the AAA National Champion).
Gaston Chevrolet is interred next to his brothers in the Holy Cross and Saint Joseph Cemetery in Indianapolis, Indiana.
Read more about this topic: Gaston Chevrolet
Famous quotes containing the words national, champion and/or death:
“It is to be lamented that the principle of national has had very little nourishment in our country, and, instead, has given place to sectional or state partialities. What more promising method for remedying this defect than by uniting American women of every state and every section in a common effort for our whole country.”
—Catherine E. Beecher (1800–1878)
“Let’s not quibble! I’m the foe of moderation, the champion of excess. If I may lift a line from a die-hard whose identity is lost in the shuffle, “I’d rather be strongly wrong than weakly right.””
—Tallulah Bankhead (1903–1968)
“During these fits of absolute unconsciousness I drank, God only knows how often or how much. As a matter of course, my enemies referred the insanity to the drink rather than the drink to the insanity. I had indeed, nearly abandoned all hope of a permanent cure when I found one in the death of my wife.”
—Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849)