# 1920 AAA Championship Car season

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 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 Murphy |
| NC | March 28 | Beverly Hills Heat 1 - 50 | Los Angeles Motor Speedway | Beverly Hills, California | Board | — | Art Klein |
| Beverly Hills Heat 2 - 50 | March 28 | — | Los Angeles Motor Speedway | Beverly Hills, California | Board | Jimmy Murphy |
| Beverly Hills Main - 50 | March 28 | — | Los Angeles Motor Speedway | Beverly Hills, California | Board | Tommy Milton |
| 2 | May 31 | International 500 Mile Sweepstakes | Indianapolis Motor Speedway | Speedway, Indiana | Brick | Ralph DePalma | Gaston Chevrolet |
| 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 DePalma |
| NC | September 6 | 4th Annual Autumn Classic - 225 | Uniontown Speedway | Hopwood, Pennsylvania | Board | — | Tommy Milton |
| NC | September 19 | Syracuse Race - 50 | New York State Fairgrounds | Syracuse, New York | Dirt | — | Ralph DePalma |
| NC | October 2 | San Joaquin Valley Classic - 200 | Fresno Speedway | Fresno, California | Board | Eddie O'Donnell | Jimmy Murphy |
| 5 | November 25 | Beverly Hills Race 5 - 250 | Los Angeles Motor Speedway | Beverly Hills, California | Board | Jimmy Murphy | Roscoe Sarles |
    ^A Starters limited to first four finishers for each preliminary race
    ^B 183 in$^3$ (3.00 L) maximum displacement.
    ^C 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 distribution 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.
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. 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. 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 RY | | | 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 R | 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 R | | 8 | | | | 2 |
| - | Jim Crosby | | | | | 8 | 0 |
| - | Joe Boyer | 11* | 12* | 9 | | | 0 |
| - | Al Melcher | | | | | 9 | 0 |
| - | Eddie Pullen | 10 | | | | | 0 |
| - | John Thiele R | | | | | 10 | 0 |
| - | John Boling R | | 11 | | | | 0 |
| - | Riley Brett R | | 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 R | | 16 | | | | 0 |
| - | Bennett Hill | 17 | 17 | | | DNP | 0 |
| - | Jerry Wunderlich R | | 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 not participate (DNP) |
| Not competing |
In-line notation :
| Bold | Pole position |
| Italics | Ran fastest race lap |
| * | Led most race laps |
| Rookie of the Year ||
| Rookie ||