His grandfather, David Crorey, was an Irish immigrant who founded the "Exchange State Bank" in Carsonville, Michigan.

In winning the trophy, he set a new airspeed record of 248.99 mph for a closed-circuit race.

[6] On Monday, August 23, 1926, he was leading a formation of three army planes leaving the Sesquicentennial Exposition in Philadelphia heading toward Selfridge Field in Michigan when in heavy fog he hit a tree and crashed on Jacks Mountain near Bellefonte, Pennsylvania,[3][7] and was missing for two days.

After waiting in vain for rescue he crawled two-and-a-half miles to a road where he was found by highway workers on Wednesday.

[10] When Westinghouse bought the site in the 1948 and closed the airfield, they named their Bettis Atomic Power Laboratory after him.