When Shaw speaks about a driver who was killed in a race, he says a few kind words about him, then moves on. By 1908, the Wright brothers were traveling across the United States and Europe in order to demonstrate their flying machine . The tradition was carried on in 1955 and 1956 after Shaw's death. He also started on the front row five times. Hepburn sat out the 1947 race but entered the next year. As the plane crashed, Wilbur recalled sailing through the nose bubble, flying through the trees, and being soaked with condensation, and flammable gas from the plane's ruptured fuel bladders. In 1941, in his last Memorial Day race, he hit the wall and spent the summer in a vast with three smashed vertebrae. DECATUR, Ind., Oct. 30 -- Wilbur Shaw, president of the Indianapolis motor speedway and three-time winner of the 500-mile race, was killed with two companions in a plane crash near here late today. Translation on Find a Grave is an ongoing project. To use this feature, use a newer browser. He was previously married to Cathleen "Boots" Stearns and Beatrice Patrick. While working a racecar driver, Shaw also worked for Firestone Tire Company and wrote several articles on automobiles and auto parts. At Detroit, where the men had gone to take part in a car test, the third man on the plane was identified as Ernest Roose, Indianapolis businessman and artist. My mind is weird. (AP) -- WILBUR SHAW, 52, president of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and three-time winner of the 500-mile race, and two companions were killed in a plane crash near Decatur Indiana late today. The light plane exploded and crashed in a field as a farmer watched nearby. Shaw was inducted in the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America in 1991. After racing, he became a sales manager for Firestone (for whom he tested tyres for) and president of the Indianapolis Speedway, for whom he effectively saved the site - and the race - forever by his involvement in pushing to make sure the speedway was bought and maintained, and most notably promoted properly after World War Two. State police and Sheriff Robert W. Shraluka said the bodies were ground to bits in the wreckage.