Dennis
Nalon

Duke Nalon, whose full name was Dennis Clayton Nalon, was born in Chicago in 1913 and died in 2001. He raced midget cars, sprint cars and Indy cars in the United States. His nickname was "The Iron Duke". He belonged to the Chicago Gang, which also included Tony Bettenhausen and other drivers. The group toured tracks in the Midwest and on the East Coast. In 1938 he won the AAA East Coast sprint car championship, and in 1941 the Midwestern title.

The Indianapolis 500 counted towards the Formula 1 World Drivers' Championship from 1950 to 1960. All of Nalon's championship races were starts in that event. He started in 1951, 1952 and 1953, each time in a Kurtis Kraft, making three starts in total. In one of those races he took pole position, and his best result was tenth place. He scored no championship points.

Overall, Nalon started the Indianapolis 500 ten times and finished three of them. Twice he started from pole position there. In 1947 he entered with a pre-war Mercedes-Benz W154. In 1949 he had a serious crash in turn three of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, in which his car caught fire.

He was admitted to several halls of fame: the National Midget Auto Racing Hall of Fame in 1987, the National Sprint Car Hall of Fame in 1991 and the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America in 2015.

Source: Wikipedia, “Duke Nalon”. Text licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.