The Tragic Loss of Tom Kincaid

This young man peers at you through the mist of decades gone - meet Tom Kincaid. A massive talent, Indianapolis-born Kincaid raced for one of his hometown's top automobile manufacturers, National Motor Vehicle Company. He was a protege of one of the sport's most intelligent and prolific winning drivers, Johnny Aitken.
 
The two shared everything, a home, cars and people even noted that they wore each other's clothing. Like a little brother Kincaid eagerly followed Aitken - and learned from the master. By the spring of 1910 he was clearly a force of nature on the track.
 

Soon Kincaid was winning. He took to the big speedways and his brilliant drive in the rain on the two-mile red clay banked oval of Atlanta cemented his reputation as a winner and a team player. His temperament was ideal as he patiently followed Aitken until the latter's engine faltered. With the clay softening into a slimy film he slid his four-cylinder National in an almost constant drift to prove untouchable to his competition.
 
A month later during the Memorial Day weekend he was in Indianapolis and picked off one of the most important victories of the 1910 season - the 100-mile Prest-O-Lite Trophy. He was well off the launching pad and embarking on a career that apparently had no limits.
 
Life as it constantly does demonstrated it had different and devastating plans when on a test drive at the Brickyard in July 23-year-old Tom Kincaid crashed on the backstretch of the big oval. It was all over. All the promise, all the dreams, all of what could have been. National president and Indianapolis Motor Speedway Founder Art Newby was so emotionally destroyed he and Aitken announced their withdrawal from the sport.
 
Weeks later, though, they came to terms with their grief and soldiered on. Two years later National would win the Indianapolis 500 with a substitute driver on loan from rival Marmon: Joe Dawson. Dawson became the great race's second winner in a car that most likely would have been in the hands of...you guessed it, Tom Kincaid.
 
Read about this great talent gone way too soon from so, so long ago by clicking thru the link above.