Ernie Triplett was the 1931 and 1932 AAA West Coast Champion. Although he was born in the Midwest and did most of his early racing there, he rose to prominence after he started winning at the Legion Ascot Speedway in Los Angeles. He competed in the Indianapolis 500 five times between 1929 and 1933. He failed to finish four times because of mechanical failures. However in 1931 he completed the distance finishing  in seventh place. By 1934 he had semi-retired from the sport and was racing only occasionally.

On March 4th, 1934 he entered a AAA Pacific Coast Big Car Championship race at Imperial Raceway in California. According to reports the track was so dusty that the vision of the drivers was severely impaired. One car, slowed by engine problems, had stopped on the track in the north turn. Another car hit the stationery race car and rolled over on impact. At this point several people from the infield had run onto the track to assist just as Triplett arrived on the scene at speed. Triplett’s car struck and killed a mechanic, and crashed heavily, causing injuries to Triplett that would prove fatal within a few hours.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 4th, 2008 at 3:13 am and is filed under Drivers, IndyCar, Racers Past. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.