Matson - The Indiana Trophy

You won't find a lot written about Joe Matson on the Web, but he was an auto racing driver of some prominence in the early days of the sport in America. Matson competed in the 1912 Indianapolis 500 and the Vanderbilt Cup twice. His biggest success appears to have been his triumph in the Indiana Trophy race held only once,  on June 18, 1909, as the support race to the June 19 Cobe Trophy. This photo from the June 19, 1909 edition of the Indianapolis News is of Matson driving his Chalmers-Detroit racer to victory in the  Indiana Trophy on a public roads circuit through and around the Indiana cities of Crown Point and Lowell as well as a lot of countryside in the northwest corner of the state near Chicago. Check out another photo of the two men published in the June 19, 1909, edition of the Indianapolis News. The paper reported that Matson was of Danish descent and had only recently graduated from being a riding mechanic to assuming the driving duties. The paper also described him as "sturdy and phlegmatic."
 
Other sources indicate the riding mechanic was Frank Vaughn.