Umbrella Mike

Umbrella Mike by Sigur Whitaker
 
The title alone was enough to peak my curiosity. Who was Umbrella Mike…and how was he behind the Indianapolis 500?
 
Umbrella Mike Boyle was the powerful force behind Chicago’s International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. His power was such that on January 22, 1937, he brought the city of Chicago to its knees by ordering half of Chicago’s 800 electrical workers to walk out after shutting off a series of circuit breakers controlling much of the city’s power grid. Nearly 95,000 street lights went dark, and thirty-eight of the city’s fifty-five drawbridges that spanned the Chicago River in midtown were stuck in the up position.  The Chicago Police Department was helpless to help the thousands of commuters as their internal telephone system went down. Within two and a half hours, Boyle’s demands were met and the power was restored with a phone call.
 
The story is set during the Great Depression, an era of gangsters and corrupt politicians. Boyle walked the fine line between the feuding Chicago gangsters and the politicians. Like Al Capone, he was hounded by the feds for violation of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act but spent little time in prison. In addition to his union work, he formed the Boyle Valve Company which manufactured high-powered, well-engineered engine valves for passenger and racing cars.
 
Like the duel of Ford vs. Ferrari in the 1966 Le Mans Grand Prix, the Great Depression pitted millionaire playboy Joel Thorne against Mike Boyle for dominance of the Indianapolis 500 in the late 1930s and early 1940s.
 
Boyle’s tenure at the Indianapolis 500 started in 1926 when he entered a single car. Despite having a flat tire during the race, the car, driven by Cliff Woodbury, finished third. “Wild Bill” Cummings won the 1934 Indianapolis 500 in the Boyle Products Special in record time. This only whetted Boyle’s desire to dominate the race. His goal was to have the best drivers, the best cars, and the best chief mechanic.
 
Thorne was born into a wealthy family but had a difficult childhood. His parents divorced when he was young, and his father sent him to live with his paternal grandmother who died three years later. His father then put an ad in a newspaper for a “good home” and he went to live with a woman in Denver, Colorado who was paid $18,000 per year to care for him.
 
Thorne was eccentric with an appetite for fast boats, fast cars and fast women. He first entered the 1935 Indianapolis 500 and the car, driven by Jimmy Snyder, finished twenty-second. In 1936, he entered two cars for the Indianapolis 500. Once again, the results were disappointing with one car failing to qualify and the other finishing twenty-first. Umbrella Mike also entered the race with four entries which finished fifth, ninth, twenty-first and last.
 
Thorne’s luck changed when in May 1937 he met Art Sparks, a talented race car builder. He not only bought a car from Sparks, he also purchased three four-cylinder Millers, an old Studebaker and a 220 front-drive Offy that he would drive in the race. His qualifying effort had him as first alternate and he tried to buy his way into the race by purchasing a car and then attempting to withdraw it so he could be in the race. Track president Eddie Rickenbacker disagreed and the driver originally assigned the car, Cliff Bergere, piloted it during the race. Thorne’s cars would finish thirteenth, fifteenth, seventeenth, and thirty-second.
 
In September 1937, Thorne started Thorne Engineering Company to build race cars in Los Angeles. His primary competition for the next four years would be Umbrella Mike, a moniker that Boyle disliked. Supposedly the name came about because Boyle would hang his umbrella at a local bar inverted to accept “donations” but Boyle adamantly disavowed this tale.
 
After Louie Meyer won the 1936 Indianapolis 500, he joined the Boyle team for the 1937 race and finished fourth. For the 1938 race, Meyer left Boyle and created his own team, backed by Bowes Seal Fast. Needing a driver for the 1938 race, Boyle hired Wilbur Shaw, who had won the 1937 Indianapolis 500. Boyle negotiated a deal with Maserati for one of their race cars which arrived at the dock in April 1939. It was loaded onto Boyle’s flatbed truck and shipped to Indianapolis. Shaw finished second to Floyd Roberts in the race. Boyle also hired Cotton Henning, one of the renowned chief mechanics during this era. The team of Wilbur Shaw and Cotton Henning would dominate the Indianapolis 500 with the Maserati for the next several years.
 
For the 1939 Indianapolis 500, Boyle had a trio of drivers he felt confident would win the Indianapolis 500—Wilbur Shaw, Ted Horn and Chet Miller. On the starting grid, these three drivers occupied the second, third, and fourth starting positions respectively. Chet Miller exited the race after being involved in a multi-car crash that killed the defending Indianapolis 500 champion, Floyd Roberts. The yellow flag came out and the racers slowed their speeds. Lou Meyer, hoping to become the first driver to win four Indianapolis 500 races, was leading followed closely by Wilbur Shaw. When the green flag waived, there would be a mad dash to the finish. With sixteen laps to go, Shaw swept by Meyer on the front stretch. Attempting to catch Shaw, Meyer shredded his right front tire and had to pit. Meyer was a lap down when he exited the pits and he made a gallant effort to catch Shaw. Meyer would lose control of his racer with two laps remaining. Shaw drove on to win the race and Ted Horn finished fourth. Joel Thorne’s cars finished seventh, sixteenth and nineteenth. 
 
Mike Boyle was arrested by federal agents in February 1940 on charges of violations of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act in restraint of the Chicago building trades. While he was being defended by his cadre of attorneys, preparations were being made for his racing team to return to the Indianapolis 500. His team consisted of Shaw in the winning 1939 Maserati, Ted Horn and Frank Wearnes in ancient Millers. Having had a dispute with Art Sparks, Joel Thorne had only one car in the race. The remaining two racers were in Sparks’ Los Angeles shop.
 
The 1940 Indianapolis 500 saw Rex Mays surge to the front. Shaw’s driving style was to stay within striking distance of the leaders but make his final charge with 100 miles to go. Mays, who had pushed his racer hard, had to stop for new tires and Shaw took the lead. At the 375-mile mark, rain began to fall. The yellow flag came out and traffic slowed. The rain continued and true racing never resumed. Wilbur Shaw won and went down in Indianapolis 500 history as the first man to win back-to-back races in addition to joining Lou Meyer in the three-time winner club.
 
For the 1941 race, Wilbur Shaw in the Boyle Maserati was going to try to be the first man to not only win four races but also to win three in a row. Shaw, whose Maserati had been completely rebuilt following the 1940 victory, started from the third position. Around 7 a.m. a fire broke out in the garages and teams scrambled to get their cars and equipment out of the burning building. Cotton Henning successfully got the Maserati and the spare tires and wheels out of the conflagration. The water from fighting the fire washed away the markings on the tires. RF for right front, LR for left rear as each tire was specifically balanced and fitted for each wheel. Additionally, one wheel had been found to be defective and had been marked “Do Not Use” which was also washed away.
 
In addition to Wilbur Shaw, Boyle’s three-man team included Chet Miller and newcomer George Conner who replaced Ted Horn. Horn had joined the Thorne team driving one of the racers built by Sparks. As the racers lined up, Mauri Rose was on the pole in a Maserati, followed by Rex Mays in second, Wilbur Shaw in third and Ted Horn in fourth.  Joel Thorne started from the thirty-first position. On the fifth lap of the race, Joel Thorne was involved in a crash and was out of the race. When racing resumed after thirty laps under the caution flag, Mauri Rose was in the lead followed by Shaw and Mays. Rose’s ignition failed and Shaw took the lead which he maintained until lap 151 when he felt the car start to slide toward the wall. His rear wheel collapsed and Shaw slammed into the retaining wall. When Mauri Rose’s ignition failed, his car owner, Lou Moore  substituted Rose for Floyd Davis who was running in fourteenth place on the 72nd lap. In the final laps of the race, Mauri Rose passed Cliff Bergere and Rex Mays for the win.
 
Racing was suspended during World War II. Boyle had the Maserati stored in Chicago and hired Ted Horn to drive it in the 1946 Indianapolis 500 and Cotton Henning to restore it to racing condition. Joel Thorne hired George Robson to drive one of his Big Sixes. Ted Horn started the race in the seventh position and Geroge Robson started in the fifteenth position. George Robson took the lead on the 93rd lap and took the checkered flag. It was the only time that one of Joel Thorne’s cars won the Indianapolis 500.  Ted Horn finished third.
 
After the 1946 race, Mike Boyle decided to exit big time auto racing. The Boyle Maserati was sold in 1958 to a group of Indiana sportsmen who formed the Indianapolis Race Cars, Inc. It was the Shaw Maserati that Billy Vukovich drove in his first attempt to qualify for the Indianapolis 500. Subsequently, the Maserati was retired and is now in the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum.
 
This is a well told story which gives insight into racing during the Great Depression.
 
I will be the featured speaker on Friday, October 27 at the Rotary Club of West Raleigh, 4200 West Hillsborough Street, Raleigh luncheon meeting.   I hope to see you there!
 
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