His story all but died with him. It is rarely remembered and rarely told, and that's hardly surprising. We celebrate and hold on to the stories of history-makers, of those who were the first to finish their races – Jackie Robinson and the Dodgers, Gertrude Ederle and the English Channel, Neil Armstrong and the moon – and for the most terrible reason of all, Thompson did not finish his. That's what happened here 40 years ago. Read the old newspaper clippings. Listen to the people, including the Philadelphia-area motorsports pioneer who witnessed it. If not for that crash, Tommy Thompson might have made history. He might have raced in the Indianapolis 500 – and become the first black man to do so.