Donald Davidson (historian)

Donald C. Davidson is the historian of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, the only person to hold such a position on a full-time basis for any motorsports facility in the world. Davidson started his career as a statistician, publicist, and historian at USAC. He is perhaps best known for his radio program, The Talk of Gasoline Alley, broadcast annually throughout the "Month of May" on WFNI in Indianapolis, as well as his long tenure as a part of the IMS Radio Network.

Davidson is a member of the Auto Racing Hall of Fame and the Richard M. Fairbanks Indiana Broadcast Pioneers Hall of Fame. In 2016, he was named a Sagamore of the Wabash by Governor Mike Pence.

British born, Davidson was from Salisbury, Wiltshire in South West England. He worked as a cinema projectionist at the Odeon Leicester Square in London. He first learned of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway when he became passionately interested in Grand Prix motor racing in the mid-1950s. Part of that interest stemmed from viewing highlight films of auto races. It did not take long for his interest to transfer over to the Indianapolis 500, plus other forms of American oval track racing. Davidson sought out books, magazines, and other various publications relating to auto racing. He then proceeded to memorize, in great detail, the results of every Indianapolis 500. He has been described as having Selective Retentive Easy-Access Memory.