Death was not an uncommon occurrence in any form of air racing in the 1930s. Close flying, low altitudes, and high speeds, however, made the Thompson Trophy races particularly dangerous events. Death was a constant companion for the competitors, and each year the death of another competitor seemed to mar the event.

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During the first Thompson Trophy Race in Chicago in 1930, a young Marine pilot, Captain Arthur Page, was leading the race and seemed well on his way to winning in his XF6C-6, an extensively rebuilt Curtiss Hawk fighter to which, among other things, an 800-hp Curtiss Conqueror engine had been added. Then, on lap 17, as Page was rounding the home pylon in front of the grandstand, his plane shuddered, went into a slow roll, and crashed. No one ever knew what happened to his plane. Charles “Speed” Holman, in a Laird “Solution” that had been completed only hours before the start of the race, went on to win. Page survived the crash, only to die from head injuries a few days later.

The legacy of death that was begun in that first race was to follow the Thompson Trophy for many years. In fact, death seemed to stalk the victors of the Thompson Trophy. Both 1930 winner Speed Holman and 1931 winner Lowell Bayles were killed in competitive crashes within a few months of their Thompson Trophy victories, and in 1933 winner Jimmy Wedell was killed in a non-racing crash in June 1934. On the eve of the 1934 race, only one former winner, 1932 champion Jimmy Doolittle, who had retired shortly after his victory, remained alive.

The prestige of the Thompson Trophy was, in itself, sufficient to assure the status of the National Air Races as one of the world’s premier aviation meets. This reputation of the Nationals was enhanced still further, however, when the Bendix Trophy, an annual cross-country race for unlimited planes, was added to the program in 1931.

Point-to-point racing, rather than closed-course events, was probably the most common type of racing in the 1920s and 1930s. It was, however, less popular with the crowds than the closed-circuit races. Confined to their seats in grandstands, the spectators got little more than a brief glimpse of the racers as they flew across the field to cross the finish line at the end of the race.

Nonetheless, the challenge of long-distance racing attracted the attention of the aviation industry, and the idea of a cross-country race appealed to the popular imagination. With the Bendix Trophy, just such an event became an integral part of the National Air Races. And, like the Thompson Trophy, the Bendix Trophy quickly became the most important contest of its kind in the world.

The routes over which the Bendix Trophy Race was run varied. When the Nationals were held in Cleveland, the race was run between Los Angeles, and the northeast Ohio city. When the Naionals were held in Los Angeles, as they were for two years, the Bendix Trophy became a truly transcontinental race, being run between New York and Los Angeles.

Consistent with the tradition of American barnstorming, the National Air Races, more than any of its predecessors, relied upon the crowd for its existence. Most of the earlier air-racing contests had relied heavily upon industry sponsorship and government-supported teams. The National Air Races, on the other hand, were basically shows and, as such relied almost entirely upon ticket sales and paying spectators to cover the cost of the event.

During the Depression years, following the stock market crash of 1929, the event, like many other of the nation’s industries, was generally in a precarious financial situation. In 1934, for instance, admission to the races ranged from 50 cents to $2.50, lavish sums during those lean years. However, profits for the event were meager. In 1930, the National Air Races made only about $2,500. In 1933, the event just broke even, and in 1931 and 1932, it actually lost money, a loss which the backers had to make good. Nonetheless, the Nationals managed to survive the Depression, no small achievement considering the scope of the nation’s financial catastrophe.

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