James Murdock "Billy" Winn (August 27, 1909 – August 20, 1938) was an American

racecar driver Auto racing (also known as car racing, motor racing, or automobile racing) is a motorsport involving the racing of automobiles for competition. Auto racing has existed since the invention of the automobile. Races of various sorts were organis ...

. Primarily a sprint car driver, Winn competed in four

Indianapolis 500 The Indianapolis 500, formally known as the Indianapolis 500-Mile Race, and commonly called the Indy 500, is an annual automobile race held at Indianapolis Motor Speedway (IMS) in Speedway, Indiana, United States, an enclave suburb of Indi ...

races (1931, 1932, 1936, and 1937) and drove as a relief driver in 1933, 1934, 1935, and 1938. He also drove his single-gear sprint car in the 1936 and 1937

Vanderbilt Cup The Vanderbilt Cup was the first major trophy in American auto racing. History An international event, it was founded by William Kissam Vanderbilt II in 1904 and first held on October 8 on a course set out in Nassau County, New York, Nassa ...

races, running near the front of both races but being sidelined by mechanical failure both years. Winn was killed in a non-points paying

AAA AAA, Triple A, or Triple-A is a three-letter initialism or abbreviation which may refer to: Airports * Anaa Airport in French Polynesia (IATA airport code AAA) * Logan County Airport (Illinois) (FAA airport code AAA) Arts, entertainment, and me ...

Champ Car Champ Car World Series (CCWS) was the series sanctioned by Open-Wheel Racing Series Inc., or Champ Car, a sanctioning body for American open-wheel car racing that operated from 2004 to 2008. It was the successor to Championship Auto Racing Teams ( ...

event held at the

Illinois State Fairgrounds The Illinois State Fairgrounds is located in Springfield, Illinois. It hosts the annual Illinois State Fair in the summer as well as other events throughout the year. The fairgrounds encompasses 366 acres of land and was added as a historic distric ...

on August 20, 1938, when tire failure caused Winn's Miller to overturn on the fourth lap of the 100-mile race.

Award

Winn was inducted in the

National Sprint Car Hall of Fame The National Sprint Car Hall of Fame & Museum is a Hall of Fame and museum for sprint car drivers, owners, mechanics, builders, manufacturers, promoters, sanctioning officials and media members. The museum is located in Knoxville, Iowa, the ho ...

in 2003.Davidson, Donald. (2003). ''James M. "Billy" Winn.'' National Sprint Car Hall of Fame & Museum. https://www.sprintcarhof.com/helper_pages/FileGet.aspx?id=49

Indianapolis 500 results

References

External links

* 1909 births 1938 deaths People from Weston, Missouri Sportspeople from Kansas City, Missouri Racing drivers from Missouri Indianapolis 500 drivers AAA Championship Car drivers Racing drivers who died while racing Sports deaths in Illinois National Sprint Car Hall of Fame inductees {{US-autoracing-bio-stub