JOHNNY THOMSON - USAC HALL OF FAME CLASS OF 2017

Johnny Thomson, of Boyertown, Pa., was one of the sport’s most beloved competitors. In 1948 he won the UCOA New England Midget title after winning 32 races. He would repeat as UCOA champion in 1950. In 1952 he claimed the AAA Eastern Midget crown. Known as the “Flying Scot,” he was the first driver to complete a 100-mile dirt-track race in less than an hour in winning at Langhorne (Pa.) Speedway in 1957. He was proficient in the AAA and USAC Championship Cars, finishing third in the final standings three times, and started the Indianapolis 500 each year from 1953-1960, recording a third in 1959 after starting from the pole. Among his Championship race victories were four during the 1958 season. In 1958 he won the USAC Eastern Sprint Car title, a title he had earlier won under AAA sanction in 1954. Inducted into the National Sprint Car Hall of Fame in 1996 and the National Midget Auto Racing Hall of Fame in 1997, he perished in a Sprint race at the Allentown (Pa.) Fairgrounds in 1960. As an aside, he was a competitor on the highly acclaimed TV show, Bud Collyer’s Beat the Clock!