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1958
Recorded plainly, as the sanctioning body recorded it: USAC's own review of its 1958 National Midget season carries the death whole. Paul Howe, 43, of Danville, Indiana, was killed during the USAC National Midget feature at South Bend Motor Speedway on 18 June 1958: his car struck the fence, flipped back onto the track, and landed upside down. Rex Easton won that 50-lap feature; Howe is scored 18th in the results USAC prints. No other fatality at a South Bend track appears in the record this history could reach — the search covered the speedway's whole life and Playland's — and the negative is printed as a searched result, not a certainty. One death in eighty years of racing on two ovals is the documented toll, and this entry is its whole size.
Sources:
- USAC, 1958 USAC National Midget Season review, by Pat Sullivan (usacracing.com) — the South Bend race of 18 June 1958, Easton's 50-lap feature win, and Howe's death: 43, of Danville, Indiana, his car striking the fence, flipping back onto the track, and landing upside down; Howe scored 18th in the printed results.