Considered primarily a track racer, Albert Champion surprised in 1899 when he won Paris-Roubaix. That year he also won the Four Days of Berlin and the Three Days of Paris races. After 1899 he moved to the United States to take advantage of his fame and took up motorcycle racing and to avoid the draft in France. While in the US he started a factory that made spark plugs for cars and motorcycles, which would later become the Champion Sparkplug Company, and then the Champion Ignition Company. Champion returned to France after a few years and won the 1904 French title in the motor-paced event and also started making spark plugs and magnetos in France. But he returned to the US in 1908, and in 1909, his company became known as AC Spark Plug, using his initials for the name. The company became one of the leading manufacturers of spark plugs in the world, and Champion became a very wealthy man. His firm survives to the 21st century as ACDelco, a part of General Motors, and Champion Spark Plugs, which are sold by the Federal-Mogul Corp.
France