Shaw, Wilbur

Fact For the Day: October 31st.

On the night of October 30th 1954, a light aircraft came down near Detroit. On board was Wilbur Shaw, a man generally regarded as the saviour of Indianapolis after World War II. He was lost one day shy of his 52nd birthday.

W.Wilbur Shaw was quite a driver. His rookie year at Indy saw him earn a 4th place. He went on to win the 500 miles race in 1937, 1939 and 1940.

Appalled at the decay of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway after the war years, he persuaded Tony Hulman to dip into his pocket to resurrect the old circuit. The rest - as they say - is history.

I'm not an expert in Indy heritage. Has anyone else got any good Wilbur Shaw stories?

And if the Indianapolis Motor Speedway hadn't been revived, is it possible that American tracks might have taken a very different path in the postwar era?

Could Brooklands have benefited from a British Wilbur Shaw?

Is this a new daily item ? Fact for the day.

If so and as they will probably cover many aspects of racing perhaps you could persude Craig to open a fact of the day section.

Enjoyable all the same though

Thanks

SL

That's the idea, Simon.

And I'm actually putting them here in an effort to increase traffic to the Historic forum. Hopefully, some of the topics will strike a rich seam.

Sparky has tried it with the Tech forum, and we thought I should give it a whirl and see how it takes. In the course of my researches, I keep coming up with fascinating little curios, which have nothing to do with my ongoing project, but might stir some conversation nevertheless.


And as my Indianapolis references are very thin on the ground, I'm genuinely interested to hear any Wilbur Shaw stories.

Anyone?