1920 Indianapolis 500


When the founders of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway drew up the plans for the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, The Indianapolis Star was there and we've covered every Indianapolis 500 since 1911. For the next 100 days, RetroIndy reviews all 99 Indianapolis 500 races.

The Chevrolet brothers may have lost the battle of the Chevrolet automobile to Billy Durant and General Motors, but they didn't lose the battle of the 1920 Indianapolis 500.

Gaston Chevrolet, the youngest brother, drove a Louis Chevrolet-built Monroe to victory. The race car actually was a Frontenac that was built with a Monroe nameplate when William Small, an Indianapolis distributor of the Monroe automobile, put up the money for the car.

The victory highlighted three historical factors. It broke the stranglehold of the Europeans at the Speedway. It was the first race for the smaller 183-cubic-inch engines rather than 300-cubic-inchers. And it would be the last time until 1934 that a four-cylinder powered car won.

As often the case at the 500, Chevrolet's first place came almost at the end of the race, Ralph DePalma, with nephew Peter DePaulo as his riding mechanic in a straight-8 French Ballot, provided most of the excitement.

DePalma, with a two-lap lead over Chevrolet, discovered on the 187th lap his Ballot was on fire. Rather than stop, driver and mechanic roared around the oval, with DePaolo crawling out on the hood with a fire extinguisher. The singed racer finally sputtered to a stop, dropping the pair to fifth before Hard Luck Ralph got it going again.

Rene Thomas salvaged the runner-up spot for Ballot, no small task as Thomas had wrecked a team car when he sideswiped Arthur Chevrolet's Frontenac during practice. Art was seriously inured and thereafter he turned his mechanical talents to building Fronty speed equipment for the Model-T Ford.

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