The 1920 AAA Championship Car season consisted of 5 races, beginning in Beverly Hills, California on February 28 and concluding in Beverly Hills on November 25. The AAA National Champion and Indianapolis 500 champion was Gaston Chevrolet. The 1920 season later became a source of confusion and misinformation for historians when in 1926 the AAA published a revisionist history, naming another driver as the season's point champion.

During the final race of the season on November 25 the Beverly Hills event witnessed a tragedy, as that year's Indianapolis 500 winner and soon-to-be National Champion, Gaston Chevrolet, was killed, along with Eddie O'Donnell and his riding mechanic, Lyall Jolls.

Official schedule and results

Rnd Date Race name Track Location Type Pole position Winning driver 1 February 28 Beverly Hills Race 1 - 250 Los Angeles Motor Speedway Beverly Hills, California Board Jimmy Murphy Jimmy MurphyNCMarch 28 Beverly Hills Heat 1 - 50Los Angeles Motor SpeedwayBeverly Hills, CaliforniaBoard — Art Klein Beverly Hills Heat 2 - 50 — Jimmy Murphy Beverly Hills Main - 50 — Tommy Milton 2 May 31 International 500 Mile Sweepstakes Indianapolis Motor Speedway Speedway, Indiana Brick Ralph DePalma NC June 19 Universal Trophy Race - 225 Uniontown Speedway Hopwood, Pennsylvania Board — Tommy Milton 3 July 5 Tacoma Race - 200 Pacific Speedway Tacoma, Washington Board Tommy Milton Tommy Milton 4 August 28 Elgin National Trophy - 255 Elgin Road Race Course Elgin, Illinois Road Ralph DePalma Ralph DePalmaNC September 6 4th Annual Autumn Classic - 225 Uniontown Speedway Hopwood, Pennsylvania Board — Tommy MiltonNC September 19 Syracuse Race - 50 New York State Fairgrounds Syracuse, New York Dirt — Ralph DePalmaNC October 2 San Joaquin Valley Classic - 200 Fresno Speedway Fresno, California Board Jimmy Murphy 5 November 25 Beverly Hills Race 5 - 250 Los Angeles Motor Speedway Beverly Hills, California Board Jimmy Murphy Roscoe Sarles

Starters limited to first four finishers for each preliminary race maximum displacement. Points allocated on the basis of advertised distance of 250 miles.

Controversy over official race schedule

The 5 race schedule has been confirmed as the correct and historically accurate schedule for the championship season of 1920. In the race day program for the final race at Beverly Hills was the points distributionBeverly Hills race day program "The present standings of the championship contenders who race today" 25 November 1920 for the championship contenders over the previous four races of the season. The championship was confirmed in the weeks leading up to the race by various newspapers around the country printing the four race championship standings leading to the final race.Detroit News. 26 September 1920, Sect. II p. 7L.A. Times. 21 November 1920, Pt. 6 p. 1

Confusion about the season began in 1926 when, for "comparative reasons", Contest Board member Arthur Means reworked the schedule to include 10 races and changed the champion to Tommy Milton. The earliest that the ten race standing occur are in the 27 October 1927 issue of Motor Age.Motor Age. 27 October 1927, Pgs. 17 & 20 In 1951 Racing Board member Russ Catlin found these retroactive crib sheets and folded the results into official AAA documentation, continuing the confusion about the 1920 season and early AAA history as a whole. The added races to the season were all of the Non-championship races of the above official schedule, excepted the two races at Uniontown Speedway.

In 1961, Al Bloemker attempted to reconcile the two different accounts for the 1920 season. He surmises that there was an issue with sanctioning fees paid by the Uniontown Speedway and their two races held that year were not included in the final season standings."500 miles to go; The story of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, New York, Al Bloemker, 1961, p. 153 The printed media of the time is silent about any issue with the Uniontown races not being championship events. They did in fact hold two races but they were not part of the championship. If Uniontown did pay for championship level racing but was not credited for them, lawsuits would have surely been filed but no such record exists.

Official final points standings

Note: Drivers had to be running at the finish to score points. Points scored by drivers sharing a ride were split according to percentage of race driven. Starters were not allowed to score points as relief drivers, if a race starter finished the race in another car, in a points scoring position, those points were awarded to the driver who had started the car.. The final standings based on reference.

Pos Driver BEV1 INDY TAC ELG BEV2 Pts 1 Gaston Chevrolet 1 7 8 6 1030 2 Tommy Milton 16 3 1* 2 11 930 3 Jimmy Murphy 1 4 6 3 4 885 4 Ralph DePalma 8 5 11 1 DNQ 605 5 Roscoe Sarles 14 17 5 1* 540 6 René Thomas 2 520 7 Joe Thomas 2 8 10 7 5 351 8 Ralph Mulford 7 9 2 4 350 9 Eddie Hearne 6 6 3 DNQ 3 345 10 Eddie Miller DNP 2 260 11 Ira Vail 3 12 140 12 Eddie O'Donnell 5 14 8 5 7 110 13 Art Klein 13 8 4 62 14 Ken Goodson 4 61 15 Jean Chassagne 7 50 16 Tom Alley 10 7 36 17 Percy Ford 6 35 18 Pete Henderson 10 14 19 John DePalma 9 10 20 Harry Thicksten 8 2 - Jim Crosby 8 0 - Joe Boyer 11* 12* 9 0 - Al Melcher 9 0 - Eddie Pullen 10 0 - John Thiele 10 0 - John Boling 11 0 - Riley Brett 11 0 - Cliff Durant 15 DNQ 12 Wth 0 - Reeves Dutton 12 0 - Aldo Franchi 13 0 - Ray Howard 13 0 - Jules Goux 15 0 - Willie Haupt 16 0 - Wade Morton 16 0 - Bennett Hill 17 17 DNP 0 - Jerry Wunderlich 17 0 - Waldo Stein 18 DNQ DNP 0 - Salvatore Barbarino 18 0 - Louis Chevrolet 18 0 - Howdy Wilcox 19 0 - Jean Porporato 22 0 - André Boillot 23 0 - Toland Nicholson DNQ 0 - John White DNQ 0 - Arthur Chevrolet DNQ 0 - Jules Ellingboe DNQ 0 - Frank Elliott DNQ 0 - Kurt Hitke DNQ 0 - Glenn Howard DNQ 0 - Jack Scales DNQ 0 - Dave Lewis DNQ 0 - Alton Soules DNQ 0 - Stuart Wilkinson DNQ 0 - Tom Rooney DNS 0 - W. H. Seymour DSQ 0 Pos Driver BEV1 INDY TAC ELG BEV2 Pts Color Result Gold Winner Silver 2nd place Bronze 3rd place Green 4th & 5th place Light Blue 6th-10th place Dark Blue Finished(Outside Top 10) Purple Did not finish(Ret) Red Did not qualify(DNQ) Brown Withdrawn(Wth) Black Disqualified(DSQ) White Did not start(DNS) Blank Did notparticipate(DNP) Not competing In-line notationBoldPole positionItalicsRan fastest race lap*Led most race lapsRookie of the YearRookie

See also 1920 Indianapolis 500

References

http://media.indycar.com/pdf/2011/IICS_2011_Historical_Record_Book_INT6.pdf (p. 77)